Survivors Of Domestic Abuse At Risk Of Homelessness
Nearly two thousand domestic abuse survivors a year are put at risk of homelessness or being forced back into the arms of their abuser due to local authority rules saying they are not vulnerable enough to access housing.
An estimated 1,960 households fleeing domestic abuse in England are not being provided with a safe home by local authority housing teams because not everyone escaping domestic abuse is considered in “priority need”, finds a report by Crisis and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ending Homelessness (APPGEH). The study calls for the government to urgently revise the domestic abuse bill so that all of those who are homeless due to escaping abusive partners are considered a priority and therefore guaranteed a safe home.
Neil Coyle MP, chair of the APPGEH, said: “It is beyond heart-breaking that people fleeing for their lives are being forced to choose between homelessness or returning to their abusers because the services that should have found them a safe home don’t consider them a priority. The current system of asking survivors to provide evidence of their vulnerability is incredibly insensitive and traumatic, and often impossible to do. We have heard horrifying stories of people being asked to return to the address they have fled to gather evidence of the abuse they have experienced. Putting lives in danger simply cannot carry on.”
He said the landmark domestic abuse bill was the “opportune moment” for the government to put an end to “these harrowing stories” by making sure everyone who is escaping domestic abuse is guaranteed the safety and stability of a permanent home.
Housing charity Crisis and the APPGEH argued the government’s recent announcement of measures to ensure that all survivors have access to temporary support in emergency refuges fails to go far enough. The report says that although refuges are a profoundly important resource, which provide emotional support as well as shelter, survivors need long-term housing options. Researchers add that this is particularly important because the number of people who have become homeless because of domestic abuse is troublingly high. In 2018, some 5,380 households were made homeless in England over a three-month period directly because of domestic abuse, according to government statistics released last week.
The report comes in the context of increasing cuts to refuges – with women and children having been turned away from oversubscribed shelters and forced to return to abusive homes after years of funding cuts. Several refuges have closed since 2010. Those in need of a refuge to escape their abuser are finding it harder than ever to find a free bed, with the most recent figures showing 60 per cent of them are unable to be housed, most commonly due to lack of space. Local authority spending on refuges has been cut from £31.2m in 2010 to £23.9m in 2017.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government said: “We recently announced that for the first time ever, councils will be legally required to provide vital support in secure accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse and their children, and communities secretary James Brokenshire pledged over £90m for this. This will end the variation in support and ensure that all families are able to recover and overcome their experiences.”
