A/HRC/31/54 in Nepal in 2015 left thousands homeless, with 320,000 children sleeping rough in the immediate aftermath.17 Informal settlements are often located in disaster-risk areas. International responses to natural disasters tend to focus on immediate emergency needs for medical care and shelter, sometimes requiring proof of prior residence or tenure arrangements in order to provide services — which homeless people lack — and neglecting the need for longer-term strategies to address the resulting legacy of homelessness. 38. The common denominator in virtually all structural causes of homelessness is government decision-making inconsistent with human rights — neglecting or failing to respond adequately to the needs of the most disadvantaged in response to crises or economic developments and allowing unregulated market forces to render large numbers of people homeless.18 Homelessness is created when apparently external structural causes converge with the systemic patterns of social exclusion and discrimination and when governments fail to address new challenges within a human rights framework. V. Homelessness and marginalized groups 39. Discrimination is both a cause and a consequence of homelessness. Those who face discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, place of origin, socioeconomic status, family status, gender, mental or physical disability, health condition, sexual orientation and/or gender identity and age are more likely to become homeless and, once homeless, experience additional discrimination. The intersections of other grounds of discrimination with homelessness vary in different countries. In some, for example, racial inequality intersects strongly with homelessness. In Brazil, African-Brazilians make up only 7 per cent of the population of wealthy areas and yet make up the majority in informal settlements.19 In the United States of America, black families are seven times more likely to be homeless than white families.20 40. The ongoing legacy of discriminatory customary and statutory laws on divorce, inheritance and matrimonial property — as well as social practices that attribute housing to male heads of households and the resultant poverty — deprive women of security of tenure and render them particularly vulnerable to homelessness. 21 When women are widowed, separated or divorced,22 need to leave violent households or flee situations of armed conflict or natural disasters, or are evicted from their homes, they face significant risks of becoming homeless.23 Divorced and widowed women in Bangladesh and Lebanon, for example, are reported to be living in dilapidated shacks in dangerous informal settlements and women fleeing violence in Kyrgyzstan and Papua New Guinea are left with few housing options.24 41. The global economic crisis has had a distinct impact on women’s homelessness. In Spain, for example, many single mothers were overindebted from home purchases. In many 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 10 Save the Children, “320,000 Children Homeless in Nepal” (1 May 2015), available from www.savethechildren.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=8rKLIXMGIpI4E&b=9241341&ct=14637 607. According to the response to the questionnaire from the Norwegian Refugee Council, humanitarian aid often is allocated to male heads of households, thus further discriminating against women. The Economist, “Race in Brazil” (28 January 2012), available from www.economist.com/node/21543494. National Coalition for the Homeless, “Who is homeless?” (2009), available from www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts/Whois.pdf. Response to the questionnaire from Human Rights Watch, United States. Response to the questionnaire from Monarch Housing Association. Response to the questionnaire from Human Rights Watch, United States. Ibid.