Life "without" Home: Life-story, Daily Practices and Coping Strategies of Homeless Women

There is a shortage of studies on woman homelessness in Russian academic literature. However, the experience of homeless women, the circumstances in which they find themselves in a situation of homelessness and how they cope with it, are not taken into account by officials when creating social programs for homeless people. It is considered that “life on the streets” is male world and homeless women are invisible for authorities, scholars and public. Homeless women are a heterogeneous social group, with different experiences and trajectories of homelessness. The focus of this study is the women experience of “living” without a home. The main reason of the study was to analyze the biographical trajectories and everyday-life experiences of homeless women. As part of this master's thesis, biographical contexts leading women to situations of homelessness were described, everyday practices of homeless women were reconstructed, and their survival strategies and ways of coping with homelessness were highlighted. The study is carried out in a qualitative paradigm. The biographical method was chosen as the main method of this thesis, empirical data were collected using biographical semi-structured interviews with homeless women living in St. Petersburg. The study identified two trajectories of getting into a situation of homelessness, everyday practices of reconstructing a home, and strategies for survival and coping with homelessness.