A Brief History of Women's Housing in Los Angeles

Los Angeles County* is home to 4.9 million people who identify as women, 14,461 of which are counted as homeless. Yet the majority of them, citing fears of assault, harassment, and rape, go unseen. In fact, According to the most recent Greater Los Angeles’ Homeless Count, 65 percent of homeless women are domestic abuse survivors. In order to survive, many women hide, dress masculine, or seek out well-lit areas to sleep in.

The notion that women are unsafe alone in public has persisted since the late 1800s. Los Angeles experienced a 350 percent population increase from 1880 to 1890, in-between two transformative events in the city’s history—the construction of the Central Pacific Transcontinental Railroad (1870) and the discovery of Los Angeles City Oil Field (1890). According to the 1900 census, there were more single than married women between the ages of 15 and 30. But if they didn’t live at home, where did they sleep?