Sex Workers and Their Right to Housing: An Exploration into the Sex Workers’ Housing Experience

Seema-Rose Al Ma’ani

When discussing sex workers, one topic that fails to come up in conversation in relation to them is their experience with the housing market. In this blog, this is what is going to be explored in detail utilizing literature that is limited in terms of the quantity available. The focus will be on the extent to which sex workers experience a violation of their right to housing as a consequence of their occupational activities. Essentially, this blog delves into the idea that not only do sex workers experience violence and discrimination because of their occupation, but also they tend to be victims of a lack of housing because of it as well.

This blog will start off by looking into the definitions of sex work and explaining what the right to housing actually means. Then, exploring the different elements of the right to housing, and applying to those to the information found in the literature. This will answer the research question of the extent to which there is a violation of sex workers’ rights.

What is ‘Sex Work’?

Before delving into the topic of sex workers and their right to housing, it is important to understand the meaning of both terms.

According to the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), the term ‘sex worker’ is used to refer to anyone who “receive[s] money or goods in exchange for sexual services, either regularly or occasionally” (NSWP, 2024). It is also important to keep in mind what is meant by their occupational activities, which is called “sex work”: “the consensual provision of sexual services between adults, which takes many forms, and varies between and within countries and communities” (NSWP, 2024). The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recognizes that a variety of the human rights that are afforded to sex workers’ are violated, including their right to health and housing as a result of, for example, stigmatization (OHCHR, 2024). The violation of the right of housing for sex workers is becoming increasingly more recognized and discussed in the international sphere by different organizations.

What is their “Right to Housing”?

As stated previously, the right to housing is widely recognized by different international organizations. The most important being Article 25(1) of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including… housing”, which is mirrored in Article 11(1) of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The emphasis on the adequacy of housing means that it is not enough to just have a roof over someone’s head, but also carries other requirements like “electricity, water, and heating, as well as a safe environment that fosters security, dignity, and well-being” (European Sex Workers Rights Alliance (ESWA), 2025).

An interesting element that is discussed in relation to the crossover between sex workers and their housing is that they are “intrinsically linked” (ESWA, 2025). This means that sex workers start sex work because they lack housing, but to potentially stop working as a sex worker, they also need to have access to stable housing. Also, it is understood that housing is an important right because it ensures sex workers access to “healthcare, personal development, and family stability” (ESWA, 2025).

Elements that Make Up Sex Workers’ Right to Housing

The right to housing has different elements. According to Vols, there are three elements that compose the right to housing: “access rights”, “occupancy rights”, and “exit rights” (Vols, 2024). Each of these make up a different part of the right to housing, which will be used to assess the extent to which sex workers’ right to housing is violated because of their occupational activities.

When discussing “access rights”, this element of the right to housing has to do with the ability for someone to acquire housing, which can be in the form of rent, ownership, etc (Vols, 2024). Thus, taking into consideration sex workers, their access rights have to do with them being able to rent or own a house.

When discussing “occupancy rights”, this element deals with the ability to enjoy housing once you acquire it, which as stated by Vols, “protect[s] individuals from paternalistic or moralistic restrictions on their behavior within their homes” (Vols, 2024). With sex workers, it would mean that they would be able to carry out their occupational activities in their house without any restrictions from others, but also people like state officials wouldn’t be able to enter their homes without consent.

With “exit rights”, this element ensures that when sex workers are dealing with an eviction, there are rights that are respected by their landlords and others (Vols, 2024).

As mentioned above, these different elements will be important to keep in mind when discussing the extent.

Application of the Elements to Real Life Scenarios

Utilizing this information found in the literature, the focus will be on whether or not sex workers are actually confronted with a violation of their rights of housing using the lens of their access, occupancy, and exit rights.

As previously stated, the amount of literature available on this topic is limited, and thus, the analysis of this research question isn’t as meaningful as it could be. Also, the literature seems to focus primarily on the experiences of sex workers in North America, primarily in the United States, which is also a limitation of this research.

Access Rights

As understood, access rights deal with a sex worker’s ability to acquire housing. The literature shows that sex workers have a difficult time being able to obtain housing because of their occupational activities.

Before delving into how, it is imperative to understand why access to housing is so important for sex workers specifically. These reasons vary, but all mean that sex workers cannot have a liveable experience.

Being forced to carry out their occupational activities on the streets because of a lack of access means that sex workers can be troubled with higher levels of policing and violence because of the increased exposure, which is also coupled with declining mental and physical health (Macon, 2022). Breakstone reaffirms these reasons and doubles down by stating that being able to carry out their occupational activities indoors would allow “sex workers to escape a deepening cycle of impoverishment” (Breakstone, 2015). Also, sex workers being able to work indoors would mean that they escape potential violence from clients because of the ability for sex workers to filter who gets to be a client or not (Breakstone, 2015). What is also important to note is that being housed means that sex workers might be able to at some point make money through established and legal means in the formal economy (Breakstone, 2015). Reverting back to the idea of heightened control, this also has an impact on the health of sex workers because there can be more access to the use of condoms whilst operating indoors rather than outdoors where the client has more control in deciding what takes place (Lazarus, 2011). A key point to bear in mind is that there is duality within the housing crisis in relation to sex workers. This means that although housing can be the reason that sex workers can transition out of their illegal and potentially dangerous work, it can also place them in difficult situations that lead to them reverting back to this form of work (Macnaughton, 2007). Thus, it is a delicate situation that needs to be dealt with carefully to ensure that it benefits sex workers rather than disadvantages them.

Whilst there are a multitude of reasons why sex workers find it hard to access housing, one of the most influential and recurring reasons for why sex workers struggle is the fact that they are banned from housing by public and private landlords, which can be partly due to criminalization.

In some parts of the US, having been convicted of “sex-work-related offenses” can mean that sex workers cannot be recipients of “housing benefits” (Macon, 2022). To be even more specific, there are certain civil laws in New York (dealing with public health and property) that allow for the exclusion of sex workers from “private and public housing” (Breakstone, 2015). As well as that, in New York, sex workers who have been convicted of sex-work-related offenses aren’t able to gain access to “affordable public housing” because they do not have the necessary documentation needed to apply (Breakstone, 2015).

It is important to note that to rent or own a property in some jurisdictions, there are certain forms of documentation that are required by law to have and present. This is another very important reason why sex workers have difficulties accessing housing. For example, sex workers won’t be able to provide the relevant authorities with proof of employment or income because they would risk exposing themselves or they simply don’t have it due to the illegality of their work (NSWP, 2024). Thus, sex workers would need to fabricate documentation in order to guarantee access to housing (NSWP, 2024).

Occupancy Rights

Once sex workers have obtained access to housing, they still struggle within their homes because of external involvement in the carrying out of their occupational activities within the premises, which has to do with their occupancy rights.

With occupancy rights, a landlord’s fear of being penalized is a reason for the detriment of the occupancy rights of sex workers. As stated beforehand, one part of occupancy rights has to do with the ability to enjoy the premises without any paternalistic or moralistic influence from external sources, like landlords. However, in New York, there may be an incentive for landlords to oversee and check up on what their tenants are doing in the apartments that they own because it is illegal for landlords to allow sex work to be carried out within their premises (Li, 2023). This also applies to access rights because this means that landlords may also choose to refuse to rent to sex workers for fear of prosecution under this law (Li, 2023).

Besides the effect of criminalization, there are also the shared subpar experiences that different sex workers have endured when they were able to access housing through programs or temporary housing solutions. Social services are services that are used to aid those in need, however for sex workers, it seems that they experience the opposite. In the US, some sex workers actively steer clear of social services because of the discrimination and monitoring that is carried out by staff members in these establishments (Macon, 2022).

On the topic of monitoring, this appears to exist even with housing programs, where staff use high levels of surveillance and with the information that they gather, they can report to probation officers (Shdaimah, 2023). The issue with this is that there is evidence that shows that there are falsified reports made by staff members, which is potentially as a result of discrimination and stigma against sex workers and their trade (Shdaimah, 2023). With monitoring, especially in shelter housing, sex workers are unable to carry out their work due to the strict controls enforced upon them by the staff members, which means that they are unable to generate an income (Breakstone, 2015). This means that sex workers are unable to get out of the ‘cycle of impoverishment’, as discussed above.

Another issue in relation to the occupancy rights of sex workers is the fact that these housing programs fail to meet the basic needs of sex workers, including the fact that they are not able to be housed with their families, and fosters an environment where drug use can continue (Shdaimah, 2023). To add to this, although shelter housing makes an attempt to advantage sex workers, the unfortunate reality is that sex workers still face a dangerous environment (Breakstone, 2015). This is because female sex workers tend to face violence from male staff members and other residents sometimes (Breakstone, 2015). There are other forms of danger in temporary housing that led to sex workers looking for housing elsewhere include infestations of pests that were not properly dealt with, curfews and guest policies meaning that sex workers can’t work, and the fact that some couldn’t get access to or would get kicked out of these solutions because of the nature of their work (Lazarus, 2011).

Exit Rights

The exit rights of sex workers should also be respected. These rights apply when sex workers are removed from housing whether this is voluntary or involuntary.

Once again, the effect of criminalization has come up in relation to exit rights as well as the other two. Sex workers who have been convicted of crimes in relation to their trade could potentially face getting kicked out of or not being able to enter housing programs in general (Shdaimah, 2023). This also applies if sex workers are utilizing public housing to carry out their occupational activities, as this can constitute “the basis for eviction or for exclusion from public housing” (Shdaimah, 2023). Additionally to this, landlords also have the power to end rental contracts or can repossess their houses if sex workers are utilizing the premises to carry out these functions as well (Breakstone, 2015). In New York specifically, this power is not only afforded to landlords, but also the District Attorney, who also has the ability to forcefully evict sex workers for performing their functions on site (Breakstone, 2015).

How to Improve the Current Situation?

In order to ensure the proper allocation of the different elements of the right to housing, there are a variety of ideas that have been brought up in the literature.

In order for housing to be considered as adequate, it is important for it to be a “comfort zone” (Shdaimah, 2023). This “comfort zone” comes when sex workers can experience the feeling of safety and of being whole, which occurs when the following things are achieved: location, being valued, having personal relationships with others in the same accommodation, ability to see family, the ability to care for others that need to be taken care of, and if they are parents, the ability to provide for their children (Shdaimah, 2023).

Some authors listed various types of housing models that could ensure that sex workers are given access to their right to housing. One of the ideas was something called “transitional shelters”, which can be either short or long term and have support staff that ensure that sex workers can find permanent housing after (Breakstone, 2015). Another idea is something called “Housing First” programs, which ensures that sex workers can find apartments and rents them out as a social security benefit (Breakstone, 2015). The last idea, and the most successful one is something called an “unsanctioned indoor sex work environment”, which would have an environmental-structural intervention that would lead to less violence and health risks (Breakstone, 2015).

Conclusion

The answer to the main question that is posed here would be that to a large extent, sex workers do experience violations of their right to housing because of their occupational activities. Once again, the right to housing encompasses three important elements that need to be respected and fulfilled including access rights, occupancy rights, and exit rights. Each of these elements are violated in the real world because of a variety of reasons. The most influential seems to be the criminalization of sex work in general that leads to these rights being violated. Discrimination and stigmatization also forms part of influential reasons for the violations of sex workers’ right to housing.

Sex workers having access to housing means that they have the potential to get out of their trade by ensuring safety, avoiding police, and more. Thus, it should be of utmost importance that governments work to fight against policies and people that take away from the three elements needed for sex workers to have their right to housing respected.