The Connection Between Drug Addiction, Homelessness and Women’s Recovery
How substance use, housing instability, trauma and unsafe relationships can create a cycle that becomes increasingly difficult for women to escape
By Bridget Garrelts, LCPC, CADC
Homelessness does not always look the way we imagine it.
At Today’s Sober Women, we have encountered women living in their cars, moving from place to place and trying to figure out where they can safely sleep. We have seen women who want to get sober become increasingly vulnerable because they have no stable place to live. Sometimes a friend or family member lets them stay for a while. Sometimes they find a motel when they have enough money. Sometimes a man offers them a place to stay, and what initially feels like safety becomes another dangerous situation.
This is where homelessness and addiction can begin feeding each other. Substance use can contribute to the loss of employment, relationships, financial stability and housing. Once a woman no longer has a safe place to live, the stress and vulnerability of homelessness can make recovery considerably harder. She may find herself surrounded by drugs again or dependent upon someone who is using. She may enter or return to a relationship where she is controlled or physically abused because leaving means sleeping in her car or having nowhere to go.
The question is no longer simply, Why doesn’t she stop using? We also have to ask what happens when a woman wants to stop using and discovers there may be nowhere safe for her to go.
How Drug Addiction Can Increase the Risk of Homelessness
It would be inaccurate to say that drug addiction alone causes homelessness. Housing costs, poverty, domestic violence, job loss, trauma, mental health concerns and other circumstances can all contribute to someone losing stable housing. Substance use, however, can be a significant part of that progression.
A systematic review and meta-analysis examining 116 studies found that drug-use problems were associated with increased odds of subsequently becoming homeless. The researchers identified other significant risk factors as well, including physical abuse, foster care experience, incarceration and psychiatric problems.
Those statistics can sound clinical until you think about what they may look like in a woman’s life. Addiction can gradually erode the structures that once helped keep her stable. She loses a job. Bills go unpaid. Trust within her family deteriorates. A sister who allowed her to stay before is no longer willing to do it. Friends begin setting boundaries because they have been hurt or frightened by what has happened.
Housing may eventually be the most visible thing she loses, but it may be one of many losses that occurred along the way. Once that happens, recovery becomes even more complicated because staying sober is difficult enough without also wondering where you are going to sleep tonight.
Homelessness and Substance Use Can Become a Dangerous Cycle
The scale of homelessness in the United States is enormous. HUD’s 2024 Point-in-Time count measured homelessness in sheltered and unsheltered locations across virtually the entire country. The federal report uses a one-night count, which is an important limitation: it provides a snapshot rather than identifying every person who experiences housing instability during the year.
There is another reality that statistics and common images of homelessness do not always capture clearly: women sleeping in cars, temporarily staying with other people or moving through unstable living arrangements because they have nowhere of their own to go.
Living in a Car Changes the Choices Available to a Woman
Imagine trying to work on your recovery while living in your car. Everyday decisions become much harder. You need somewhere to shower and use a bathroom, somewhere safe to park and somewhere to keep whatever belongings you still have. If the car breaks down, you may lose the closest thing you have to a home.
Now imagine someone offers you a room.
For a frightened woman who has been sleeping in a vehicle, You can stay with me can sound like an answer. Unfortunately, the person offering that room may not always be safe.
We have seen women become dependent upon men for housing and then find themselves in relationships where they are controlled, beaten or exposed to drugs again. A woman who has been working toward sobriety may suddenly be living with someone who uses. A woman who wants to leave an abusive relationship may know that walking out the door means returning to her car.
From the outside, people may wonder why she stays. From where she is standing, the choices may look very different.
Trauma, Domestic Violence and Addiction Can Become Intertwined
Trauma cannot be separated from a serious conversation about women, substance use and homelessness.
A study involving 851 women with substance use disorders who were homeless or near homeless found extraordinarily high levels of trauma exposure. Every participant reported at least one of the trauma categories researchers assessed, and 75.3% reported five to seven of the seven types studied. These findings do not mean that every woman experiencing homelessness has the same history. They do demonstrate how deeply trauma can intersect with substance use and housing instability in this particular population.
That history matters because substances may have become one of the ways a woman learned to cope with fear, memories, shame or emotional pain. Homelessness can expose her to additional trauma, while an unsafe relationship may reinforce both the fear and the substance use.
Understanding those connections does not remove personal responsibility from recovery. It helps explain why lasting recovery usually requires more than telling someone to stop using drugs. A woman may need to learn how to tolerate painful emotions without escaping them, recognize unsafe relationship patterns, develop boundaries and begin trusting her own decisions again.
She may also need something much more immediate: a safe place to sleep.
Women Can Want Addiction Recovery and Still Struggle to Find Help
One assumption we need to challenge is that a woman who continues struggling must not really want help.
Research tells a more complicated story. A study of 241 homeless women with alcohol or drug use disorders found substantial motivation for treatment while also identifying barriers including depression, cost, waiting for services, not knowing where to find treatment and facilities being too far away. Other research involving women at risk of homelessness has identified system-related, social and emotional barriers to accessing addiction treatment. We have experienced that gap ourselves.
Rosa’s Story: Searching for a Safe Place to Go
At Today’s Sober Women, we tried to help a woman I will call Rosa who was struggling in Florida and needed a safe place to go.
We did not simply send Rosa a list of telephone numbers and wish her well. We researched resources, made calls and tried to advocate on her behalf. We wanted to help her connect with organizations that might be able to provide the shelter and assistance she needed.
What we discovered was frustrating: there wasn’t necessarily somewhere for Rosa to go.
Florida’s Council on Homelessness acknowledges this problem directly. Its 2025 report states that shelter demand can exceed available space, resulting in overcrowding and waitlists that leave some people without a safe place to stay. The state’s 2025 Point-in-Time count identified 14,851 people experiencing sheltered homelessness in Florida, up from 14,494 in 2024.
Rosa’s experience changed the way we thought about telling a woman to “get help.” What does getting help mean when you call and there is no bed? What happens after the next shelter tells you there is a waitlist? How many calls can a frightened woman make before she begins to believe there is nowhere for her to go?
Today’s Sober Women could research, make calls, advocate and help Rosa understand her options. What we could not do was create a shelter bed that did not exist.
There is another truth we have learned through this work. Once an appropriate opportunity becomes available, the woman herself still has to take the next step. We can walk beside her, advocate for her and remove barriers where we can, but we cannot choose recovery on her behalf.
Compassion and personal responsibility are not opposites. Women need meaningful opportunities for help and the agency to decide what they will do with those opportunities.
The Shortage of Homeless Shelter Space Has Real Consequences for Women
A shortage of shelter space is more than a capacity problem on a spreadsheet. For the woman who cannot find a bed tonight, it changes the choices available to her.
Florida’s own homelessness report warns that demand can exceed shelter capacity, leading to overcrowding and waitlists. An organization can identify the appropriate resource, make the calls and advocate for a woman and still be unable to find an available bed.
For women, the alternative may not simply be sleeping outside. It may mean returning to an abusive partner, accepting housing from someone she does not trust, sleeping in a vehicle or remaining somewhere drugs are readily available.
Rosa’s experience made the limitation of resource navigation painfully clear. Resource lists matter. Advocacy matters. Recovery support matters. There also has to be somewhere for a woman to go.
Eli’s Fund Is Helping Create More Shelter Space for Women
Rosa’s experience helped us see that recovery support alone could not solve every problem a woman was facing. Through Today’s Sober Women, Queen’s Gate was already helping women build healthier lives in recovery. Yet we kept coming back to a painfully practical question: What happens when a woman is ready for help and has nowhere safe to go?
That need led to Eli’s Fund, another program of Queen’s Gate.
Eli’s Fund was inspired by a six-year-old boy with a heart for people experiencing homelessness and a simple desire to Love Like Jesus. He saw people who needed help and believed we should help them.
Today, Eli’s Fund responds to both immediate needs and a larger one. The program provides practical help directly to people experiencing homelessness through Bags of Eli while also working toward helping create more safe shelter space for women.
$15 Can Put a Bag of Eli Into Someone’s Hands
Bags of Eli are distributed directly to people living on the street or without stable housing. Each reusable fabric bag contains a Bible, poncho, lip balm, a pair of socks, reusable water bottle, protein bar, cleaning wipes, bottled water and lotion. Each bag also includes information about where someone can go for additional help.
A Bag of Eli does not solve homelessness, and we do not pretend that it does. A bottle of water cannot create permanent housing, and a clean pair of socks cannot treat addiction. These items meet practical needs that exist today while the resource information can help point someone toward assistance that may begin changing tomorrow.
A gift of $15 helps provide one Bag of Eli to a person experiencing homelessness.
The larger vision of Eli’s Fund goes beyond the bag. Queen’s Gate wants to help create more safe shelter space for women so that fewer women encounter what we did while trying to help Rosa: a person can be willing to ask for help, people can be willing to advocate for her, and there still may not be a safe bed available.
Today’s Sober Women Helps Women Build Recovery Beyond a Shelter Bed
A safe shelter bed and recovery support address different needs, and Queen’s Gate now has programs working in both spaces.
Through Eli’s Fund, Queen’s Gate can provide practical assistance to people experiencing homelessness and work toward increasing safe shelter opportunities for women. Through Today’s Sober Women, Queen’s Gate helps women develop the emotional and recovery tools they need to begin building healthier, more stable lives.
A shelter bed can give a woman somewhere safer to sleep. It cannot do the emotional work of recovery for her. That work may include understanding triggers, learning healthier ways to cope with difficult emotions, rebuilding confidence and developing safer relationship patterns. It means beginning to believe that sobriety can become more than simply surviving without alcohol or drugs.
Research with homeless women experiencing substance use disorders reinforces the importance of broader support. In addition to substance-use services, women in the multisite study described earlier reported needs involving mental and emotional health, housing assistance and support groups.
That is part of the space Today’s Sober Women is working to fill. We want women to have practical recovery tools and encouragement while helping connect them with appropriate outside resources when their needs go beyond what we provide.
Recovery Needs a Next Step a Woman Can Actually Take
The relationship between homelessness and addiction is not simple enough to reduce to one cause or one solution. Drug-use problems are associated with increased risk of homelessness, while housing instability can make accessing and sustaining recovery more difficult. For women, trauma, domestic violence and dependence on unsafe people for housing can add additional layers to that cycle.
Rosa taught us something we have not forgotten. Sometimes a woman can ask for help, someone can advocate for her, and the resource she needs may simply not be available. That should challenge all of us to think differently about what we mean when we tell someone to get help.
We cannot rebuild another woman’s life for her. Today’s Sober Women cannot choose sobriety on her behalf, and Eli’s Fund cannot solve homelessness. Through Queen’s Gate, however, we can help remove barriers, provide practical resources, advocate when we can, strengthen recovery support and work toward creating more safe places for women to go.
Sometimes the distance between “I need help” and “I’m ready to begin again” starts with making sure there is a next step she can actually take.
About Queen’s Gate
Queen’s Gate is the nonprofit organization behind Today’s Sober Women and Eli’s Fund, two programs addressing different but often interconnected needs.
Today’s Sober Women helps women build healthier, happier lives in recovery through practical recovery tools, emotional wellness resources, education and encouragement designed specifically for women.
Eli’s Fund provides practical assistance directly to people experiencing homelessness through Bags of Eli and is working toward helping create more safe shelter space for women.
About the Author
Bridget Garrelts, LCPC, CADC, is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor and Executive Director of Queen’s Gate. Her work through Today’s Sober Women focuses on helping women in recovery develop practical tools for emotional health, resilience, healthy relationships and sustained recovery.
