Kim never expected to be homeless. The 58-year-old woman shared a home with her boyfriend of more than three decades. But when he died two years ago, she couldn't afford the rent.
The disabled woman, who gets around with a walker, said she had nowhere to go and spent several days sleeping outside until she eventually landed in a motel, which now is facing imminent closure as a place to house the homeless.
"It's a horrible feeling to be displaced," said Kim, who declined to provide her last name to protect her privacy. "It's awful ... like you're really nobody, you know?"
But now Kim has some hope. She is planning to move into a new $7 million facility in Lowell that will provide temporary housing and support to 50 adult women, 18 and older, who need a safe place to stay, but don't qualify for family shelters or feel safe in co-ed accommodations.
This week, the Lowell-based nonprofit Community Teamwork Inc. held a ribbon cutting to celebrate the new shelter aiming to make a small dent in the huge need for housing for homeless women. Unlike overnight shelters that require people to seek a bed each day, the space will offer greater stability while residents navigate housing applications and other services.
The city of Lowell provided funding that enabled the purchase of the building, which was renovated by Community Teamwork. Lowell's Mayor Erik Gitschier praised the organization's work and cited the need for a new temporary housing with "wraparound services" to support women. Given the social support services Lowell has, he said, many come from surrounding communities for help. That has increased pressure on the city to respond.
"We've had people giving people train vouchers to come to Lowell. We've had people giving people police rides down to our transitional shelter because we have those services and their communities don't have it," Gitschier said.
The new facility, expected to open for residents in a few weeks, is designed to give women a stable place to stay for an extended period of time while they connect with case management, supportive services and seek affordable housing. It also will provide two meals a day.
"It's really hard to do a job interview if you're hungry, it's hard to fall asleep when you're hungry," said Sean Wilson, vice-president of homeless services for Community Teamwork.
Homelessness among women, especially those over the age of 55, has been on the rise across the country, according to experts who study the problem. Women also experienced homelessness in bigger numbers than men in 2023 and 2024 in Massachusetts, according to data analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Advocates say this type of stable housing option is more successful at placing people in permanent housing than overnight shelters. In Boston, Women's Lunch Place, a shelter and service provider, also operates a similar "shelter to housing" program. Jennifer Hanlon Wigon, chief executive of the organization, says guests who stay in their program are more than twice as likely to transition to permanent housing, than the national average of those exiting emergency shelters.
But even emergency shelter is in short supply. The latest data for Lowell and surrounding municipalities shows that existing emergency shelters have capacity for only 43% of those experiencing homelessness, according to an analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
"A lot of shelters, you have to line up every day and there's uncertainty if you're going to get a bed that night," said Katelynn Travers, director of Individual Homeless Services for Community Teamwork.
Kim thinks few people understand that reality.
"Once they get to you, if they don't have a bed, they just have to turn you away," Kim said. At the new shelter, she says, "we'll be able to stay there throughout the day. So with that also comes, we can make our calls, do our paperwork that we need to get done to housing or doctors."
Many of the women who will stay at the new shelter, like Kim, are being transferred from a state-funded hotel in Chelmsford that will soon become unavailable as part of a statewide closure of that type of emergency housing.
The new space got funding from several sources, including the City of Lowell, which kicked in roughly $1 million in initial funding for the project using American Rescue Plan Act funds. An additional $3 million came from corporate and private donors. Community Teamwork says a revolving loan will supply the balance.
Travers said many people experiencing homelessness face disabilities that make it difficult to work or get housing. Kim is on disability benefits.
Robyn Frost, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, said that one of the fastest subpopulations of people becoming homeless are woman older than 55.
Frost said women who may have spent more time doing childcare or elder parent care are often "catapulted" into homelessness by sudden life changes, like a divorce or the death of a partner. Studies have detailed the "graying" of the homeless population over the past two decades. Frost says more women are "outliving their money."
"The reality is right now, if you're living on any public benefits, it is not enough to rent an apartment, not enough to share an apartment, and it's hardly enough to be able to keep up with all your other expenses," she said
Exacerbating the challenge is the fact that homeless women are often "hidden," according to housing experts. They're not as visible as men.
"Most of us always think of men, but women are not the ones headed to shelter and sleeping in the shelters. They are people who are more often than not couch surfing, even living in their car, going from place to place," Frost said.
Data on people experiencing homelessness is rooted in the annual Point-In-Time Count organized by the federal office of Housing and Urban Development, an national tally conducted on a single night. It historically counted men, generally considered the more typical homeless population. Advocates for the homeless had pushed for years for gender breakdowns to help better identify needs.
Under the Biden administration, data began tracking men, women and a category for those who don't identify as either. But in 2025, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development removed all gender, listing only "individuals."
A spokesperson for the agency told GBH News that the government is "restoring biological truth to have the most accurate data." The department removed the category of "gender" and added "sex," but it is not clear if the next annual count will include women.
Judith Gonyea, a professor at Boston University School of Social Work and an expert on women experiencing homelessness, said hiding the data harms the most vulnerable.
"If we don't track things, then how do we know there's a problem?" Gonyea said. "If you can't see it, it's not a problem."
Gonyea called the new housing in Lowell "incredibly important." While overnight shelters are greatly needed, she said, they don't provide any normalcy or stability. And the harsh living conditions experienced by all homeless people lead to rapidly declining health.
Kim said many people look at those experiencing homelessness and think it's "their fault."
"What else are we supposed to do?" Kim said, "There's no rents that are cheap enough."
For now she's excited about what she calls "a new beginning" at the new Lowell space. And she's holding on to the dream of one day having her own place, no matter how small.
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