The rate of female homelessness and addiction is on the rise, with more homeless women recorded in Limerick recently than men, an Oireachtas Committee has heard.
Representatives of several addiction support groups told the Joint Committee on Drug Use that there is an urgent need to increase services specifically targeting vulnerable women.
Jennifer Doyle, with the homeless and addiction charity Novas, said female homelessness and addiction is increasing “both proportionately and in real numbers”.
She cited recent figures from the Limerick Homeless Action Team showing more women than men sleeping rough in the city for the first time. “This is unprecedented,” Doyle told the committee.
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An increase in the use of crack cocaine is driving the rise in female homelessness and impacting the ability of women to engage in recovery services, the committee heard.
“The speed and intensity of addiction, the associated risks of exploitation and the rapid deterioration in physical and mental health require a tailored, gender-informed response.”
Addiction is causing women to engage in extremely risky behaviour “including survival sex, rough-sleeping and violent personal relationships,” Doyle said.
The committee also heard from Nikki Hayes, a former RTÉ DJ who struggled with alcohol addiction and homelessness before entering recovery.
“Women in addiction are often invisible until they are in crisis. We are mothers. We are professionals,” said Hayes. “We are carers. We are daughters. We hide it well, until we can’t any more. And when we fall, we fall fast.”
Hayes described taking her first drink at 11 and spending years as a highly functioning alcoholic. “When Covid hit, the thin thread holding my functioning life together snapped,” Hayes said. Her daughter went to live with her father and she lost her job before becoming homeless.
“I had no street skills. No understanding of how to survive homelessness. I was in shock. Other homeless people taught me where to wash, where to eat, where to use the toilet. That became my daily routine: survival.”
She said she has now rebuilt her life with the help of services that “saw me as a human being, not a headline”.
“Recovery is possible. I stand here as proof of that. But I did not recover alone.”
Anita Harris, deputy head of services at Coolmine Therapeutic Community said 42 per cent of the 3,282 people the organisation treated last year were women, a record number.
Coolmine’s female specific services consistently operate at full capacity and “demand continues to far exceed availability,” Harris said.
“There is a continuous waiting list of women, including pregnant women and mothers with young children.”
The addiction workers called on the committee to prioritise the funding of female specific addiction and related services, including childcare services to enable women to maintain a relationship with their children.
“Women should not be required to rely on minimal interventions or limited-service availability,” Harris said.
