February 2004
Street Women, Street Life and Slow Death
Robert L. Terrell
Street life is particularly hard on women. Nonetheless, a bewilderingly large number of them are being forced to subsist in doorways, allies, freeway medians and curbside cribs in cities throughout the Bay Area.
The tough circumstances in which they scrounge on a daily basis in search of the basic necessities of life are extremely mean, and many of the women who endure them are not faring well.
Studies of local populations of homeless people indicate that women constitute a growing percentage of those who live on the streets, and that most of them are experiencing a bewildering variety of health problems.
.For example, the public health literature documenting their worsening dilemma indicates that homeless women tend to be plagued by genitourinary problems, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy complications, pulmonary diseases, vascular disorders, hypertension and a variety of serious neurological problems.
As a result, homeless women are far more likely to pay emergency visits to hospitals and clinics in search of care than their counterparts who reside in housing. They are also more likely to be hospitalized.
In addition, homeless women tend to be repeated victims of rape and other vicious forms of violent assault.
This excerpt from a recent report issued by the San Francisco-based St. Anthony Foundation provides a capsule summary of the magnitude of sexual abuse and violence in the loves of local street women. "A significant percent of homeless women have a history of physical or sexual abuse. 41% of homeless white women and 21% of homeless women of color suffered childhood sexual abuse. 38% of homeless white women and 16% of women of color suffered physical abuse as children. For many women much of this abuse extends beyond childhood, as 50% of homeless women and children are fleeing from domestic violence... "Victims of domestic violence are increasingly being diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). Since the violent source of the trauma has been perpetrated by people close to the victims, rather than caused by impersonal violence of a war situation, its effects are often more severe and long lasting.
"In addition, the intimate nature of the abuse destroys the familial safety networks of the victim. There are often complex connections between family relationships and vulnerability to hopelessness."
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The soul destroying nature of the dilemma facing homeless women is often reflected in their eyes. But it is extremely difficult to see this in a direct fashion, because street women rarely look strangers in the eye.
Most often, eye to eye contact with them is oblique and fleeting.
It seems that they feel that if they look too long into the eyes of those who reside inside the exclusive embrace of mainstream society they will inadvertently reveal the heavy burden of fear, insecurity, self doubt and shame that weighs on their spirits, undermining their chances for healthy, long term survival.
Given the fact that most street women do not possess the size and strength of their male counterparts, they tend to adopt coping methods quite different than those employed by males. For example, few women are capable of pushing caravans of liberated shopping carts filled with hundreds of bottles and aluminum cans over long distances, which frequently include precipitous hills.
Women are strong enough to sell illegal drugs, and some do. But street side drug dealers must be prepared to handle potentially deadly violence at any moment. The capacity to respond to violence with greater violence is part of the job description. That is one of the many reasons why most street women pass on this precarious mode of hustling the coins they need in order to maintain.
The gendered dimensions of homelessness that favor males over females are particularly apparent in the highly ritualized begging rituals employed by the local homeless populace.
For example, homeless males frequently confront passersby with caustic verbal taunts interspersed with guilt tripping requests for "spare change." Many homeless males use black humor to disarm potential donors. Others use cynicism or horrific tales of woe.
It is different with street women. Excepting the young, relatively healthy ones of the sort who sprawl along the sidewalks of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and Haight Street in San Francisco, street women rarely ask for money. Instead, they tend to use use handmade signs, kittens and strategically placed begging cups to register their desperate need for assistance from total strangers.
A remarkably large number of them do not register any appeal for assistance beyond the forlorn plea presented in the form of a deteriorating Styrofoam cup strategically placed on the ground or sidewalk in easy reaching distance.
The gender based dimensions of street side begging become immediately apparent when one considers locations where street women are and are not found. For example, in much the same manner as large, male, Kodiak bears take the best fishing sites along salmon streams in the areas where bears are the top predators, able bodied human males dominate the best begging locations along Bay Area city streets. As a result, female beggars are almost never seen working the most lucrative streams of potential donors that flow in the vicinity of popular, upscale restaurants, hotels and shopping centers. Furthermore, street women are rarely seen working the crowd at other lucrative locations such as freeway entrances and exits. The same is true of the entrances to major transportations hubs. More often than not, street women who have resorted to begging in order to survive are found in the middle of blocks seated in awkward locations where it is easy for potential donors to miss their presence, or worse yet, easily pass without having to acknowledge the woman's cup, jug, palm or empty paper plate. Homeless males frequently work together in groups, but this is rarely the case with women. Mostly, they work alone.
But a notable number of street women keep relatively large dogs as companions.
Dogs also provide protection from human predators of the sort who have few, if any, reservations about preying on defenseless women.
On cold, bone chilling nights when the wind is howling, and sheets of icy rain sweep the streets in relentless waves, the warmth of a large dog's body during the long hours before sunrise provides a basic kind of comfort that most human beings in our society take for granted.
Once a woman ends up on the streets, her chances of escaping are slim. Housing is scarce and expensive, and the few jobs for which the vast majority of street women are qualified simply do not pay enough to enable those who perform them to afford anything resembling permanent housing. Thus, many local homeless people have full time jobs, and every indication is that this segment of the populace is steadily increasing The long, slow, depressing slide toward the state of existence wherein one simply doesn't care anymore is made precipitous for street women because of their unique grooming needs. The inability to take regular baths, or change clothing regularly, clearly saps the self respect of many women far more quickly than it does with men. Inability to perform these essential functions forms a barrier that precludes acceptance in virtually all sectors of "polite society." Thus, with the passage of time street women inexorably acquire a status similar to the one that used to be accorded lepers and other "carriers" of highly infectious diseases.
One of the most unfortunate results is that many of the poverty stricken women who reside on the streets of Bay Area cities are embarked on a perilous journey toward oblivious surrender to perpetual squalor and premature death.
Shame on us.