In Dunedin, services spoken to said they were seeing more women - and children with them - who were homeless but they could often offer little help because of the absence of appropriate services.
Salvation Army social policy unit director Major Campbell Roberts said homeless women were often a "discarded group".
Facilities were tailored to deal with family and male issues, but not necessarily homeless women.
Maj Roberts said economic pressures were not the only reason for women becoming homeless.
However, a recession tended to make bad situations worse.
Other reasons were the inadequacy of mental health facilities, the breakdown of social skills, or of a family unit.
It was often hard to gauge the number of women who were homeless because they tended to keep to themselves.
There tended to be a stigma around homeless women that was not there with men, and this could make it difficult for them to ask for help, he said.
Maj Roberts said the army's social policy unit was about to undertake a major report into homeless women, at which stage numbers would become more apparent.
Methodist Connect general manager Laura Black said people needed to remember people could be homeless for a short period of time and that they would not always fit the stereotype of people with bags sleeping on benches.
Te Whare Pounamu Dunedin Women's Refuge house supervisor Darlene Gore said about one woman a month deemed to be homeless would come for help.
The refuge would take them if they fitted eligibility criteria.
Efforts would be made to try to find alternative accommodation.
There was nowhere to refer the women to in many cases and a lack of support for women without a home, she said.
Dunedin Night Shelter Trust chairman Kevin Tansley said about one in 10 of the people who came for help at the shelter were women.
If the shelter - which was set up to deal with homeless men - was empty for the night, it was possible to offer temporary respite for women, but usually they were helped to find either private accommodation or put up in a boarding house, backpacker or similar accommodation.
One of the Dunedin Night Shelter Trust's long-term objectives was to provide accommodation for women as well as men.
He said they could not put a fixed time frame on it, but ideally it would be in the next couple of years.
Homeless men were a more pressing need but there had come a time when women and families also needed help, Mr Tansley said.
A Salvation Army Mosgiel worker said there were "increasing needs" from women and their families.
Homeless people were having to be given accommodation according to the priorities of their needs rather than just when they turned up.
