From housing to home and belonging: structural violence, ontological (in)security and women's mental health

Women's mental health is profoundly shaped by structural violence through housing, which impacts their experience of home and sense of belonging. This Perspective advances an integrative sociological framework across a continuum from the most concrete manifestation of shelter (housing) through symbolic representations of home, to the psychological experience of belonging to a place. We synthesize evidence for relationships between unstable, unsafe housing, abusive homes, social dislocation, and mental ill-health. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, we specify how housing insecurity erodes community, relationships, and safety, generating ontological insecurity that amplifies vulnerability to interpersonal violence. We show that these dynamics are bidirectional: mental health conditions can impede access to resources and secure housing, reinforcing insecurity, while housing adversity is associated with worsened mental health. An intersectional lens reveals that minoritised women experience compounded harm through migration status, precarity, and policy regimes that limit protection and support. Our framework connects macro-level structures (national and international policy), meso-level institutions (welfare, health, and housing services), and micro-level lived experience, demonstrating how structural conditions become embodied as mental health symptoms. This Perspective situates ontological (in)security as central to the relationships between shelter, place, and women's mental health, identifying actionable leverage points for change. We argue for gender-sensitive, integrated interventions that expand access to safe, stable housing, co-locate mental healthcare with rights-based and anti-discrimination services, and address feedback loops between shelter, place, and mental health. By foregrounding housing as a key conduit of structural violence, this Perspective advances sociological understanding of how belonging and mental health are co-constituted and offers directions for research and policy to improve women's health and flourishing.