Recently released data for the first six months of 2024 from Toronto Public Health has found that the median age of death for women experiencing homelessness in the city is just 36.
In 2022, unhoused women who died in Toronto were on average 42 years old. That number was 43 in 2023.
The median age at death for men experiencing homelessness in the first half of 2024 was 50.
Torontonians residents, in general, live much longer with men typically dying at the age of 78 and women at the age of 85, according to 2022 data.
Honestly, I think it comes down to mentality. As morbid as it sounds, men are used to toughing it out because that’s what’s expected of them, so are more likely to survive short term homelessness. And if you survive it in the short term, you have a good chance of surviving it in the long term.
Not to mention that men are probably more likely to already be abusing such substances before becoming homeless as an established coping mechanism, whereas more women probably start abusing those substances after, leaving them less experienced to avoid overdosing, or otherwise more prone using drugs in ways that threaten their health.
Either way, this isn’t an issue of the difficulty surviving on the streets, it’s an issue that people are forced to survive on the streets in the first place. Shelters are nothing more than a stopgap, and the city and province should be focusing their efforts on both preventing people from becoming homeless, as well as habituating those that have fallen that far.
Especially as once you become homeless, you lose the ability to get a new job since nobody will hire someone who arrives at an interview with bundled cloths and smelling of piss because they have no ability to get a shower.
Not to mention that the jobs that might actually be available are probably hard manual labour. The average homeless woman is not going to have the same level of physical strength, so will likely have less opportunities and less ability to defend herself in an often violent environment.
While I agree with the added risks of attack for homeless women, I wonder if homeless men are even able to get manual labour jobs either. I mean, you still need to get through the interview for those things. Even the lowest qualification jobs I’ve done still went through the routine of having you come in to sign some documents to officiate it all, and officially showing up and giving your name is the interview, which means it’s the best chance to get rejected.