Domestic violence - what housing support?

Published by traceybignall for Race Equality Foundation in Housing

Research evidence suggests there is a direct correlation between secure housing and surviving domestic violence. Various changes in legislation and practice now means that local authorities have a responsibility to help women who cannot live in their home because of violence. However housing support to these vulnerable women is still not sufficient

Specifically, women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds have a poor experience of support in these circumstances. This is partly due to a lack of sustainable support to womens organisations that help vulnerable women. For example, 73% of 551 BME organisations experienced funding crisis between 1996 and 2000 (Sorteri, 2002). Alongside this, changes in funding streams from resourcing specialist services to generic services has had a negative impact on specialist refugees and other support available to women experiencing domestic violence.

Within housing services the lack of monitoring of gender and ethnicity often means black and minority ethnic and refugee women appear invisible in the evaluation of support policies, such as Supporting People. There are particular issue with BME communities and homelessness. With BME women experiencing domestic violence, some evidence has found that they are more likely to stay longer in specialist refugees before moving on to secure accommodation.

The recently published black and minority ethnic and refugee women, domestic violence and access to housing, Better Housing briefing paper by Aisha Gill and Baljit Banga , highlight gaps in housing support to black and minority ethnic women.

Gill and Baljit call for a comprehensive integrated approach to the problems of discrimination by gender, which address the allocation of housing. Such a policy would have an impact on the provision of suitable housing and support to this group of women. Evidence shows that BME women are disproportionately affected, facing a postcode lottery in accessing specialised support services.

Better support is likely to develop as a result of an evaluation framework that assesses how womens housing needs are being met and the ways in which housing will be sustained. Partnership between agencies plays a vital role in providing support to women, but often specialist domestic violence services are compared to mainstream services. A fairer assessment of services should be made before partnerships are formed. Hand in hand with such a framework is the need for specialist and mandatory domestic violence training to statutory sector organisations. This would add to processes and practices to ensure that domestic violence is being addressed effectively.

The Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004) introduced specialist courts and procedures to address domestic violence in the criminal justice system. But some evidence questions the effectiveness of encouraging women to prosecute and move onto non-specialist services for support. The one size fits all approach is not always appropriate and a holistic approach to ending violence against women is called for.

At the heart of any change, Gill and Banga stress, is to hear from vulnerable women themselves what support they need and to include them in consultation in policy development and implementation.

These are some of the key messages from the Better Housing Briefing paper on Black and minority ethnic and refugee women, domestic violence and access to housing by Aisha Gill and Baljit Banga. The paper outlines the research on domestic violence, current response to vulnerable women and suggestions of how the meet the housing needs of this group of women.

The Better Housing briefing papers are part of a programme of work to develop a national resource to improve health and housing services to black and minority ethnic communities.

The briefing papers are based on research evidence and summarises key messages for practice on a range of topics for housing and health practitioners. Each paper includes practice examples, resources and further reading. The papers are available to download from the Race Equality Foundation website: http://www.raceequalityfoundation.org.uk/hsc/briefings.asp or by contacting the office.