Girls, Homelessness, and COVID-19: The Urgent Need for Research and Action. Issue 3 (1st December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schwan, Kaitlin; Dej, Erin; Versteegh, Alicia
• Is Part Of: Girlhood studies. Volume 13:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 151
• Page End: 168
• Publication Date: 2020-12-01
• Subjects: adequate housing -- economic security -- eviction -- feminization of poverty -- gender-based violence -- housing precarity -- social inequity; Girls -- Periodicals; Girls -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Girls -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Girls -- Education -- Periodicals; Girls -- Sexual behavior -- Periodicals; Girls -- Health and hygiene -- Periodicals; Women's studies -- Periodicals; 305.23082
• DOI: 10.3167/ghs.2020.130311
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1938-8209

Abstract

Abstract: Equitable access to adequate housing has increasingly been recognized as a matter of life and death during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, there has been limited gendered analysis of how COVID-19 has shaped girls' access to housing. In this article we analyze how the socio-economic exclusion of girls who are homeless is likely to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. We suggest that three structural inequities will deepen this exclusion: the disproportionate burden of poverty faced by women; the inequitible childcare responsibilities women bear; and the proliferation of violence against women. We argue for the development of a research agenda that can address the structural conditions that foster pathways into homelessness for low-income and marginalized girls in the context of COVID-19 and beyond.