7 April 2026
A persistent issue faced by the women Hibiscus supports is the ongoing difficulty in accessing safe and suitable housing, a right enshrined in law, yet too often denied in practice. Black and minoritised migrant women disproportionately bear the brunt of this inequality. Gatekeeping, insecure immigration status, and a lack of understanding from professionals continue to create significant barriers to safety and stability.
Aiming to influence practice, today we are launching a new resource: the Safe Housing for Black and minoritised migrant women: Toolkit for implementing intersectional, gender-informed, rights-based frontline practice. This toolkit has been developed in collaboration with women and informed by evidence drawn from our frontline casework, direct engagement with women, and learning from complex advocacy work to build a clear picture of these challenges.
The toolkit is a practical guide for housing professionals, women’s specialist services, and those working across the migrant sector. It outlines how to navigate housing systems while centring the needs of Black and minoritised migrant women, and emphasises the importance of understanding legal duties, advocating effectively, and taking a strategic approach in the face of housing harm. It also addresses systemic issues, including inconsistent local authority responses, NRPF exclusion, and the misapplication of housing duties.
The overarching message is clear: support must be trauma-informed, intersectional and rights-based. Housing is fundamental to safety, recovery, and stability. Where this is not upheld, it reflects a failure of both housing law and the Equality Act 2010.
Migrant women continue to be overlooked due to communication barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and systemic gaps in practice. The sole purpose of this toolkit has been to challenge these failures and support a more equitable response.
In the process of influencing the development of the toolkit, women said:
“Women like us, Black and minoritised migrant women, face multiple forms of discrimination when trying to access safe housing. The barriers put in front of us and the mistreatment we face when navigating the system harm us and leave us feeling excluded and unsafe. We believe in a system that makes access to secure and accessible accommodation easier for everyone in need, including us.
This toolkit and accompanying briefing, to which we have contributed our expertise, aims to give housing providers and relevant stakeholders practical tips on how to better support migrant women like us. It is a learning resource that highlights best practices and seeks to address what has not been done right when we have faced challenges in accessing safe housing, for instance, being placed in unsuitable accommodation, facing racism and having our rights denied.”
Alongside the briefing, we developed a policy briefing that summarises evidence gathered from women and frontline practitioners from 2023 to 2025, and updates the contextual information and analysis provided in our Unsafe, Insecure Evidence Report and Policy Briefing launched in 2024.
We are grateful to the Oak Foundation for their support in the development of this new Toolkit.
For more information, contact Elizabeth Jiménez-Yanez at elizabeth@hibiscus.org.uk