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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Homeless women at greater risk of assault: report
WINNIPEG — One in five homeless women say they've been sexually assaulted in the past year, according to a first-of-its-kind report looking into the lives of 300 of the city's homeless people.
The Winnipeg Street Health Report was released today, and contains insight based off interviews done with about 90 homeless women and 210 men.
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The report says 43 per cent of people who were interviewed have trouble getting their clothes washed, and 23 per cent had a tough time finding somewhere to bathe themselves.
The report also looks at the level of violence affecting homeless people, with 20 per cent of women reporting sexual assaults.
"When you read the media often, it's talking about how homeless people are perpetrators of crime, but I think anyone who works with homeless people knows that homeless people are way more often victims of crime," said Christina Maes, who's a University of Manitoba graduate student in city planning and the report's lead researcher.
"Women who are homeless don't have a safe place to go...sometimes they're working in the sex trade, or sometimes they just don't have a safe place, they're victimized in shelters, they're victimized on the street, they're victimized by people who are offering them a safe place to stay. Not having the resources to have a safe home puts them at risk of violence."
Interviews for the report took place last summer, after researchers contacted people through local social service organizations.
The report received about $50,000 funding from the federal government and was done for the Main Street Project, a shelter for homeless people on Martha Street.
gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca
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