The history of LGBTQ+ homelessness: how DIVA reported it back in 1998, and the reality today

Some of the women in the article were able to get the help they needed from appropriate support services. Sam, after leaving care, had ended up “alone in a Blackpool bedsit with no hot water, heating or bedding”, but found somewhere safe and stable to live thanks to national LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity Albert Kennedy Trust (now known as AKT).

Sam said of her new housemate: “I trusted her. It was nice to be able to trust someone.” This experience of trust-building and stability meant that she was able to ultimately get her own flat within a year.

This LGBT+ History Month, almost 30 years after the DIVA piece, it is worth examining whether queer women are still facing the same issues as they were in the 1990s and what can make a difference.

A total of 18% of LGBT people have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, according to research from LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, rising to 25% for trans people. Among young people, the figures are especially pronounced; 24% of young people who experience homelessness identify as LGBTQ+, according to AKT’s report There’s no place like home. 

“LGBTQ+ identities give you additional vulnerabilities to being homeless”

Within the LGBTQ+ community, women are more likely to experience homelessness than men (20% and 15%, respectively), according to 2025 research in the Housing Studies journal by Lindsey McCarthy and Sadie Parr.

The reasons for queer communities being at higher risk of homelessness are complex and intertwined, but dedicated services that understand the risks can help.

One of the organisations that featured in the original DIVA article, and is still working in the sector, is Stonewall Housing, which supports LGBTQ+ people facing housing insecurity or homelessness. A newer venture is The Outside Project, whose services include an LGBTQ+ shelter and a refuge for LGBTQ+ people.

Both of these specialist service providers observe patterns in the people they are working with, having gained a day-to-day understanding of the nuanced causes of housing insecurity in queer communities and the barriers that people face. Many are similar to issues faced by cisgender and heterosexual people, but transphobia and homophobia in interpersonal relationships and wider society exacerbate the risk.

As Jamie Richardson, senior communications officer at Stonewall Housing, tells Inside Housing, “LGBTQ+ identities give you additional vulnerabilities to being homeless”, including job insecurity and the risk of homophobic landlords.

A lack of understanding that homelessness does not always look like sleeping on the street can prevent people from accessing help. Hidden homelessness can make people feel, as Mr Richardson explains, “maybe not homeless enough” to access help, an issue that is reflected directly in the story of Charmaine from the DIVA article.

When she spoke to the magazine in 1998, she was 23 and living in a Stonewall house, and said: “I didn’t really think of myself as homeless.” She also talked about how she “almost felt like I’d be abusing the service”, as other people were in more need.

Hidden homelessness

Back to the present day, and the report by AKT found that most of the young LGBTQ+ people in its research lived with hidden homelessness. More marginalised young LGBTQ+ people were at even starker risk, with those who are from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background being 50% more likely to experience hidden homelessness.

Disability, too, is a factor: people with mental health issues faced the risk of homelessness at significantly higher rates than those without (37% versus 19%).

There are also barriers to accessing help that raise the risk of hidden homelessness. Male-dominated support services (such as day centres and homeless accommodation) can lead women to avoid them due to safety fears, according to a paper commissioned under Theresa May’s government but not published until 2024. The paper was authored by the Government Equalities Office and titled Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s experiences of homelessness.

Carla Ecola is co-founder of The Outside Project, which runs a winter night shelter for trans people among other initiatives. They started this work after an extended period of hidden homelessness following a relationship break-up and an insecure tenancy as a teenager.

What followed for Ecola were years of sofa-surfing, living with homophobic extended family members (their immediate family was supportive but not local) and staying in squats following a move to London. This period was very chaotic, interrupted by odd spells of staying with friends or renting unsuitable flats.

“For trans women in particular at the moment, it’s unsafe. [Housing organisations] need to be very loud and clear about what their policies are”

A lack of proper tenancy agreements in rented properties, along with unstable and exploitative jobs, meant Ecola found it hard to escape the hidden homelessness cycle. Plus, they tell me, in many ways living in squats that were full of parties and interesting people was exciting. They now believe that the intermittent nature of things going “horribly wrong” prevented them from asking for help.

“It was a bit of a rave culture era, and I was a young person. So from the outside looking in, I was just living my life and loving it. And I’ll be honest with you… I have great memories of some of those times… I wasn’t shivering in the cold, in horrible situations all of the time.”

But when squatting in residential properties became a criminal offence in 2012, Ecola’s squat became “wildly overcrowded” and tensions were high.

Their way out, ultimately, was moving into “an illegal HMO in Hackney”, where they met their partner. After moving onto a boat, they set up The Outside Project in their mid-20s. They – and the organisation – moved into Clerkenwell Fire Station, marking Ecola’s first stable tenancy since their teens.

During Covid, when The Outside Project successfully gained funding to move out of the fire station, the project could finally run without them living there. They moved into a housing association flat, where they still live today.

Ecola believes that their own situation could have been helped by starting mental health and trauma support at an earlier stage, a timelier autism diagnosis and more tailored support services.

The long-term impact of homelessness can be devastating; whatever trauma or difficulties preceded the lack of stable housing can be significantly worsened by the instability and chaos. So while Ecola sometimes sounds wistful when talking about the freedom and fun of their years in squats, they tell me that the safety of a stable home has “made a huge difference” to their well-being.

This is why The Outside Project focuses on building relationships with the people it supports, and tailoring support to their needs. It gives service users “somewhere stable to stay, helping them with their finances, rent deposit schemes, things like that, just to get out of that situation”, with no upper age limit so people don’t “age out” of support.

What has changed?

Comparing LGBTQ+ people’s experiences facing homelessness now with those written about in DIVA in 1998, there are remarkable similarities. Family rejection, abusive relationships and problematic drug and alcohol use are themes that were present in the ’90s and remain central today.

But there are also differences. LGBTQ+ people have more legal protections in 2026 than in the 1990s. Section 28 has been repealed, employment and succession laws are more equal, and societal visibility of queer people has improved.

But Ecola says many people now have a misguided belief that dedicated provision is no longer needed.

They explain: “When we started The Outside Project, there was still some quite open discrimination against a lesbian couple. We camped outside the estate agents and made some noise about it.” That was in 2017.

And while public sentiments towards lesbian, gay and bisexual people may be improving, many trans people in the UK feel increasingly under threat, with a lack of legal clarity affecting housing providers as well as trans people (the original DIVA article mentioned neither trans nor bisexual women). Mr Richardson says that Stonewall Housing is advising a lot of services over recent confusion about whether they can continue to allow trans women into women’s hostels, for instance.

“We need services that meet our needs – not as an EDI ‘extra’”

Ecola tells me that The Outside Project sees a lot more trans women than cis women accessing its services, often because they lack a supportive network of friends or family. One pattern Ecola sees is trans women being so keen to move to London that they will quickly move in with a partner for somewhere to stay, which can be high risk. The cost of living in the capital, on top of discrimination, can mean a lack of other options.

Higher cost of living, prohibitive housing costs and benefit cuts, as well as harder-to-access mental health and drug support, can all exacerbate the pressures that lead to homelessness. Plus, as Mr Richardson highlights, spaces specifically for queer women have been “decimated by austerity” in the decades since the ’90s.

There is no clear “things are better” or “things are worse”, and Stonewall Housing’s 43 years of work can provide an invaluable overview of the changing landscape. To mark LGBT+ History Month, it has hosted intergenerational conversations among its housing ambassadors, service users and caseworkers.

Mr Richardson talks of how important these dialogues between queer generations are, telling Inside Housing: “There’s a real kind of radical activist energy among the founders [of Stonewall Housing] that I think is quite galvanising for people to hear today.”

What housing associations need to know

For social housing providers to adequately support LGBTQ+ people, better understanding of the unique needs of these communities is essential so that advice and support is specialised and appropriate.

Proactive policies make a real difference, and both Mr Richardson and Ecola talk about the importance of organisations visibly showing that they are supportive – but not stopping there. Pride flags are welcome, but tenants need support if they experience harassment or hate crimes, too.

When this work is done well, it changes people’s lives. To help housing associations to improve the services they provide to LGBTQ+ people, Stonewall Housing runs the LGBTQ+ Housing Pledge, a free initiative for social housing providers to improve their engagement, visibility and training.

“We need services that meet our needs – not as an EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] ‘extra’, but we need specialist services that are safe to us, and not providing them is putting us at risk,” Ecola says.

“For trans women in particular at the moment, it’s unsafe. I mean, it was already quite unsafe before. But [housing organisations] need to be very loud and clear about what their policies are.

“And we need housing… like, safe housing.”

The difference that meaningful help can make to excluded and marginalised communities cannot be underestimated. Ecola describes somebody who lived at The Outside Project’s Trans Winter Night Shelter last year: “This year, they’re on an apprenticeship scheme. They’re in the orchestra group. And just looking at their face, it’s a completely different colour, you know? They’ve gone from grey to rosy-cheeked.

“You see it in people, the change in their life from horror to joy.”