Represent Women at the Women’s Homelessness Alliance Event – July 10th
Represent Women took part in the Women’s Homelessness Alliance event on July 10th, a day of learning, connection, and collective action. Held at Northumbria University, the event brought together organisations, experts, and advocates to explore how we can better address homelessness in the North East through a gendered lens. The Alliance has recently been established to explore how to better address the impact of homelessness on women in the North East. The initial geographical focus will be the NECA area with potential for broadening to region wide in future steps.
Reframing Homelessness Through a Gendered Lens
The day began with opening remarks from Crystal Hicks Director Crisis Skylight Newcastle, who introduced the North East Women’s Homelessness Alliance’s aims, the thinking behind its inception and the motivation to shine a light on women’s homelessness in the North East. Crystal then set the agenda for the day. This was followed by an impactful talk from Tracy Guy, Strategic Lead North East, Shelter, who shared insights from the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census and how it can be delivered in the North East, Shelter will be leading a pilot in Newcastle this Autumn. Email Shelter North East to find out more and support the Newcastle pilot. Siera Jabar, Partnership Manager at Homeless Link, spoke about the importance of applying a gendered lens to homelessness policy and practice, as well as the work of Homeless Link’s Gendered Lens Framework.
Led by agenda members participants engaged in table talks centred around three key themes:
Connect – building relationships and networks across the sector
Collate – gathering and sharing data and lived experience
Challenge – pushing for systemic change and accountability
This feedback was collated and will be complied to steer next steps for the North East Women’s Homelessness Alliance.
Mandi Cresswell, Policy and Economy Advisor at North East Combined Authority, spoke about the combined authorities’ commitment to addressing policies and practices that adversely impact women and girls facing and who are at risk of homelessness.
Represent Women in Action
Represent Women hosted a stand featuring information about our members and the work we do to advance gender equality in systems and services in the North East. We also ran an interactive activity using gendered lenses, encouraging attendees to reflect on how gender shapes experiences and access to support.
Represent Women’s Director of Policy and Advocacy Erin Parker Leonard prepared a motion which attendees can take to their local councillors to request their local authority participates in the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census, alongside a ‘how to guide’.
Looking Ahead
The event was a vital reminder of the need to centre women’s voices—especially those of Black and racially minoritised women and those with lived experience—in conversations about homelessness. It was a day filled with insight and a shared commitment to change.
We left the event determined to ensure that gendered perspectives are not just included, but prioritised in the strategies and actions seeking to end homelessness.
Women’s Homelessess Alliance Further Details
The North East Women’s Homelessness Alliance is a collective of representatives from the North East Combined Authority region who are seeking to end women’s homelessness. The Alliance is in its initial phases and the role of the recent event was to gather voices, experiences and ideas from those working in or impacted by the North East women’s homelessness sector more information can be found by speaking to Crisis Skylight Newcastle.