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Los Angeles's Skid Row is home to an increasingly older population of women, many of whom have experienced domestic and sexual abuse, according to a new report.
The "Downtown Women's Needs Assessment" found more than half the homeless women living on Skid Row are over 51 years old. About 23 percent were sexually abused in the last year, the report found. Nearly 57 percent have been the victims of domestic violence.
"There are women in this aging population who have been homeless for a long time, between five and 10 years," Molly Moen, chief operating officer of the Downtown Women's Action Coalition said. "But we also see a significant number of women in this aging population who are in their first year of homelessness, and our sense from them is that they have recently become homeless because of the death of a spouse or the loss of a job or that sort of thing."
Treatment, health and job placement programs in the area are heavily targeted toward the men who have historically made up the bulk of Skid Row's population, the report says. But in recent years, women began accounting for a much larger portion of the area's population. By 2009, women accounted for 32 percent of those living in the area, according to the report.
Moen said the report should shine a light on the necessity of creating programs that focus on the needs, in particular, of older women.
"Often low-income job training programs focus on a lot of manual labor, which can be difficult in particular for an aging female population," Moen said, adding that some programs have begun training women toward developing artistic and craft-related skills.
"Also building on skills that many women are bringing with them already, which is retail experience, culinary experience, sewing experience," she said.
It's not clear what's responsible for the uptick in the number of older women who've recently become homeless, Moen said. She suggested it could be the residual effects of the economic slump of 2008.
"When the economy turned down, there were some people who found themselves very quickly on the street," she said. "But for the most part people went through their savings and stayed with friends and stayed in their cars," before winding up on Skid Row years later, she said.
The surveys were completed in 2013, when the overall number of homeless women living in the city grew slightly to 6,809 from 6,365 in 2011, the last year the survey was done.
"I think that it's difficult for women to be living on the streets anywhere," Moen said. "On Skid Row a number of women have really found community and a place that they call home. Our focus is on how we can make this a safe space for them and bring as many women off the streets as possible."
The Downtown Women's Center will host a panel on their findings Wednesday, August 6 at 2 p.m. It was produced by the Downtown Women's Action Coalition, an association of service providers and government agencies working in the area, including the Downtown Women's Center, Lamp Community, L.A. Community Action Network, L.A. County Department of Health and SRO Housing Corporation.