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The Impact of Domestic and Family Violence on Women and Homelessness: Findings from a National Research Project
Donna Chung, Rosemary Kennedy, Bev O’Brien and Sarah Wendt, Social Policy Research Group, University of South Australia
A range of projects carried out as part of the Partnerships Against Domestic Violence (PADV) and National Crime Prevention programs have shown the impacts of domestic and family violence on women, children, families and the broader community (Keys Young 1998, Bagshaw, Chung, Couch, Lilburn and Wadham 1999, Blagg 1999, Blagg 2000). This project funded through PADV was specifically looking at the links between domestic and family violence and women’s homelessness and housing problems. It has long been recognised by service providers and policy makers that women’s and children’s homelessness following domestic and family violence is a common occurrence, however this research project was the first national study to document such experiences.
Our data is based upon the findings of a national study involving consultation in urban and regional centres across all Australian States and Territories (Chung et al 2000). Those consulted included women’s accommodation services, public housing, police, courts administration and other services. In total 161 stakeholders participated along with 52 women who had experienced domestic violence. Stakeholders and women contributed to the research via a combination of focus groups, telephone interviews and written responses.
This study confirmed previous research showing that in order to live without violence from intimate partners women are forced or encouraged to leave their home and seek other accommodation. As a result of leaving the home, women (and their children) experienced considerable social and personal disruption and financial disadvantage. The extent to which women and children experienced all of this varied according to circumstances, for some women this can continue for many years for a variety of reasons, such as prolonged legal settlements, long periods of post separation violence and stalking or not having Australian residency status. Consequently women and children can experience various forms of homelessness throughout this period. The experience of women in this study and stakeholders’ reports strongly support the view in the literature that safe, secure, affordable and appropriate housing are key criteria in defining that a woman is no longer homeless. However, for most women and children escaping domestic and family violence, achieving this outcome is considerably difficult due to the economic and social barriers they face. The achievement of this outcome is further compounded for women who may be marginalised as a result of culture, mental illness, substance dependency, disability or location.
The Complexity of the Impact of Domestic and Family Violence
Whilst there are common experiences amongst women who experience domestic and family violence, they are a heterogenous group with diverse needs varying according to their circumstances. For some women domestic or family violence has been the major problem they have confronted with its subsequent effects such as diminished self esteem and confidence, living in fear and loss of identity. For other women domestic or family violence has been endured in tandem with a range of other debilitating problems such as mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction and gambling that they and/or their partners may experience. Stakeholders commented that in recent times they are seeing increasing numbers of women from the latter group, with a range of complex and inter-related problems presenting at domestic violence services, with some placing high demands on the services. They attributed this situation to the difficulty of accessing long term support for these other problems. The consequences of this shift are that:
§ these women often have experience of homelessness and transitory lifestyles prior to domestic or family violence due to other complex problems;
§ domestic violence workers are working with women on a range of complex issues in addition to domestic or family violence and often have to engage in a diversity of interventions involving other specialist services with such high levels of need involving considerable time and intensity of service provision;
§ these women often experienced even greater difficulties in accessing longer term housing options and SAAP exit points; and
§ the multiple problems they were experiencing could make it especially difficult for them and other residents living in communal situations.
Women who are homeless solely due to domestic or family violence are most likely to be able to move on more quickly and to re-establish their lives (and those of their children) after escaping the situation. Those women who have multiple issues and/or a long history of domestic or family violence will generally require more intensive, longer term and more diverse support from a range of services in order to not remain homeless.
Women who have independent financial resources through family or government assistance are potentially able to reduce the impact of domestic and family violence or the duration of that impact. These women are able to exercise some choice over their living arrangements and are often able to do so more quickly. They may be able to organise short term accommodation in a motel or apartment whilst they seek longer term arrangements. The financial resources of these women are likely to be most effective when coupled with emotional support and counselling, sound legal advice and good referral to other agencies and services. These women should not be confused with women whose partners may be wealthy but the women have no access to the financial resources and therefore may be asset rich and without access to finances.
Women who do not fear for their safety after leaving the perpetrator may also experience domestic or family violence differently. These women may be able to return to their own homes, thereby minimising or avoiding some disruptions and the need to physically re-establish themselves. These women will be in a familiar environment and more easily able to access their existing supports and networks, they may be able to continue employment or education more easily, they are more likely to have access to their furniture and other household goods and possessions. Their children are also likely to be able to continue existing friendships and supports and to maintain their school, sporting club and community associations. Other women who do not fear the perpetrator may opt to leave the family home because of the memory associations, the location or other factors associated with the dwelling. If these women do not fear for their safety, again, they may have more options regarding accommodation, as they may be able to remain in their local area, and have fewer requirements for home security.
Preventing homelessness: Planning to Leave
Women who had had the opportunity and resources to plan leaving a violent partner were viewed by both stakeholders and the women as often achieving better outcomes when they left. The planning required may include:
§ decisions about when to leave;
§ what to take such as packing some items in advance;
§ moving things to a friend’s or family member’s house;
§ making arrangements for children and their care;
§ arranging finances including saving some money; transferring assets into their own name;
§ discussing entitlements with Centrelink;
§ accessing other services;
§ arranging other accommodation; and
§ safety planning.
This planning enabled women to feel some control over the process, as they were able to make decisions having considered the options and it became an informed choice. This appears to be an important aspect in empowering the woman from the beginning of her decision making about the violent relationship.
Ending and Escaping Violence
The comments of both women and stakeholders revealed clear factors related to housing that increase the likelihood of a woman, and/or her children continuing to live in a situation of violence or returning to the situation. These include:
§ not being able to access shelter accommodation or that accommodation being inappropriate;
§ having to remain in a refuge/shelter environment for a lengthy period when the woman is ready to move on (lack of exit points);
§ having to accept housing of a significantly poorer standard than the family home or in a poorly serviced, isolated or lower socio-economic area; and
§ not having adequate furnishings and household goods and possessions for herself and her children.
There was a general view that the combination of concerns about safety for women and children and the availability of refuges/shelters made the woman’s removal from the home the easiest, most practical and most expedient option. As one woman said:
I went to a women’s refuge because I was told that the order the police issued could not be enforced and I would be safer at the refuge as he had threatened to kill all of us.
Unhelpful experiences women identified in relation to refuges/shelters fell into two categories: the dynamics of communal living and aspects of staffing and organisation. Issues related to communal living included the difficulties of sharing with other women and children in crisis, differing lifestyles and living standards and communication problems. Staffing and organisational issues included needing more support from staff, the attitudes of some staff, having to repeat your story to each worker and having to leave pets behind.
Women who wish to remain in the home and have the male partner leave, face barriers with this option both in the short and longer term. An important aspect of this option is that it keeps the women and children in their community, as they are not relocated. There may be limited formal support that can ensure the man leaves the property and stays away from the home despite his use of violence. This requires intervention orders that include his exclusion from residing at the property and the ongoing capacity to respond to breaches of the order. As a domestic violence court worker stated;
Relocation does not necessarily reduce fear. We need to talk power with women and assist them to seize control of their financial and physical surroundings. Courts can play a bridging role here and in assisting women to salvage their economic circumstances.
Once removed additional issues arise about where the perpetrator would be housed once denied access to the joint property. Some participants also commented that women additionally fear that court exclusion orders might escalate perpetrator violence and that the women would be easy and inadequately protected targets in their homes. One woman in relaying her sense of powerless in the face of the perpetrator’s responses to these orders said;
He was furious with the DVO order at first, then later laughed at it and said it meant nothing and he would shove it in my fucking face.
Women who had in the longer term been able to retain their accommodation had often been forced to move temporarily to safe accommodation while orders were served and the perpetrator removed from the premises. Amongst this group there was a fairly general view that current legislation was not used as effectively as it could be to ensure that women could remain in their homes. Women who had to leave the home even for a short period reported a sense of upheaval and trauma, most acute for children. When many of them returned they found that the home had been significantly damaged household goods removed.
Another key consideration is the woman’s financial capacity to remain in the home when there is only one income, especially when it is a Centrelink payment. For women renting public housing at the time of such experiences the financial burden could be made more manageable. Similarly, women in private rental are often forced to give up their house, due to property damage by the perpetrator and/or overdue rent and other bills.
My partner would stand over me for the money or my keycard. My partner spent the rent money and hocked everything in the house. I couldn’t maintain my tenancy because he wouldn’t allow me to pay the rent when he wanted it for drugs and gambling. He had run up so many bills I couldn’t catch up and manage on my own.
Women who at the point of seeking help want the violence to end but wish to remain in contact with the male partner, can find that women’s emergency accommodation services may not be well able to accommodate their needs as there are rules around perpetrators not knowing the refuge/shelter location for safety reasons. These women are likely to experience difficulties with accessing and living in domestic violence accommodation services. Such services were not established on the basis of ongoing contact as this contravenes safety concerns. This can lead to the woman returning to the home.
Women who wish to remain in the home with their partner and access services will be able to use outreach services and men’s domestic violence services. Domestic violence services working with these women place considerable emphasis on the safety of women and children in these interventions. In some instances women continue to live in the relationship and in other cases they require emergency or other accommodation at a later date as the violence continues in the relationship. In the latter situation women are likely to experience some level of upheaval as described earlier related to homelessness.
The impacts of domestic and family violence on women’s homelessness, as reported below, are drawn from stakeholders’ reports and the experiences of women who were not able to remain in their own homes and had to seek alternative accommodation. In many respects the discussion highlights the need to re-examine the situation of women being forced to leave the home to escape domestic and family violence.
Living in Transition
Some groups of women are unable to access private rental or to stay with family or friends at the point of crisis or at a later date. Reasons for not involving others included a lack of connection with family and friends as a result of the violence; the geographical distance to relatives or friend; small dwellings not able to accommodate a family; not wishing to risk harm to family and friends; or unhelpful attitudes or ‘burnout’ of family or friends resulting from repeated cycles of violence.
Where refuges/shelters do enforce their obligation to accommodate women for a specified ‘crisis period’ these women face moving multiple times, often to multiple refuges, before longer term housing is established. The upheaval of moving addresses, possessions, informing government departments, changing schools, establishing new relationships with refuge staff and other residents is extraordinarily difficult and stressful for the woman and her children.
Women gave accounts of being in states of constant anxiety, as they did not know where they would be living in the coming weeks and the ways in which this prevented them from re-establishing themselves.
Many women and stakeholders supported the view in the literature that, unlike other homeless women, often women from domestic and family violence situations do have a home, but that they are unable to access this home.
Finding Appropriate Housing
The most significant point is that the lack of suitable housing options for women and children contributes to a longer term impact on women’s efforts to establish a safe, secure and appropriate family environment following a period of domestic violence (WA Women’s Refuge Group, Newsletter).
There is a significant body of literature indicating that there are groups of women and children in the community whose opportunities for establishing and maintaining sustainable housing following the experiences of domestic and family violence are likely to be even more difficult due to their circumstances. This study corroborated previous findings in this respect. Groups identified as often facing particularly difficulties in accessing and/or remaining in suitable housing included:
§ women with mental health issues that were not well managed by medication and or other supports
§ women with addictions (drugs, alcohol)
§ women without residency
§ Indigenous women in some areas
§ disabilities, intellectual and physical
§ younger women
§ single women
§ older women
§ women with accompanying children: older boys, large numbers of children, those with disabilities and challenging behaviour e.g. ADHD
§ lesbians
§ women with accumulated debt and property damage from partner
§ women without credit and rental histories
§ women (or their partners) who were blacklisted from rental properties
§ women who do not want to leave their area, small towns
§ women who experienced transience and homelessness growing up, second generation
§ families with pets.
The barriers to gaining long-term housing can result in some these groups having to rely heavily on the continued use of emergency accommodation.
The lack of appropriate SAAP exit points, limited public housing stock, discrimination by landlords and high costs of private rental delay the opportunity to create a home for women and children to heal, rebuild and move on with their lives.
Women who use the accommodation of refuges/shelters are often forced to remain there longer than is desirable from the perspective of SAAP funders, refuges/shelters and the women themselves, however alternatives for such women are limited and often require lengthy waiting times to negotiate.
Where women fear for their safety their accommodation requirements change after leaving the family home, these needs include suitable home security such as security systems, locks on doors and windows and answering machines to screen calls. Such requirements are not often available in rental properties and are expensive for women to install in any property.
Attempts to gain housing, or to gain access to priority housing often compound the effects of domestic and family violence on the self-esteem and confidence of women. The attitudes of and discrimination by real estate agents and landlords can have a powerful effect on women. Many women described being belittled, judged and actively discriminated against by both groups, particularly in areas where there was high demand for private rental. Women reported being:
§ negatively stereotyped as ‘single mothers’;
§ told that a house was available and then told that it had been let when the agent realised they were staying at a shelter/refuge or had recently left a partner;
§ refused dwellings when agents realised that their bond had been provided by a welfare agency; and
§ unable to view properties because of the costs involved. These costs included transport to and from properties, fees charged by agents to view a property – which were sometimes non-refundable if the woman was unsuccessful; application fees and other charges.
Public housing policies which require women to get written ‘knockbacks’ from multiple estate agents before being placed on a priority housing list were experienced as humiliating and confidence shattering for women whose self-esteem was low.
I need five rejections from the private rental before they can grant me a house. Note easy even though you already have proof of your situation, you still have to pass through the eye of a needle.
In addition having to visit multiple agents, when they relied on public transport or assistance from friends, family or the refuge/shelter was stressful for women and further disruption for small children.
The high costs of private rental, even with rental support, led to some women being unable to access suitable housing or taking houses in locations that were not suitable to their needs, such as long distances from schools, not close to public transport or other facilities. Such housing arrangements are unlikely to be sustainable in the long term and women are likely to continue seeking more suitable accommodation therefore continuing to be unsettled.
Some domestic violence services, particularly in areas where limited public housing stock was available, had developed strategies to work with real estate agents to gain accommodation for women from their services.
Support Networks
The role of support networks is critical for either assisting women or hindering them in attempting to live in relationships free of violence. The heterogeneity of women’s experiences of domestic and family violence cannot be underestimated and give a clear indication of the need for women to be empowered to make real choices about what strategies they wish to take in ending the violence in their lives.
For some women family and friends were highly valuable sources of practical, financial and emotional support. For other women family and friends were experienced as judgmental, disbelieving and a barrier or hindrance in their ability to leave the perpetrator. Women who were less likely to receive positive support included women from some ethnic backgrounds, women who had previously left the perpetrator and returned, women who had been transient prior to their separation from the perpetrator and women with addictions or mental health issues. Some stakeholders described these women’s experiences as having ‘burnt out’ their sources of support. In rural and remote areas support networks and kinship ties could be supportive or unsupportive to Indigenous women who were trying to live free of violence whilst remaining in their communities, some times with partners and in other cases without their partners.
This study supports the findings of the Keys Young (1998) research that found the impacts of domestic and family violence were reduced for women who received positive support from family and friends. The aspects that they found helpful in this study were:
§ having their experiences of domestic and family violence validated;
§ having some emotional support; and
§ having a level of practical support available to them in terms of child care, assistance with accommodation, sources of information, emotional support and practical assistance to re-establish herself and her children.
Conclusions
The participants in this study confirmed many of the issues identified in the review of Australian and international literature. These include the disadvantaged status that women and children face if they happen to be victims of domestic or family violence and are forced to leave the family home. The lack of affordable and appropriate housing available to women and children following the experience of domestic or family violence is evident in the quality of their accommodation and in transience ranging from weeks to years. Where women have had to take properties that are not appropriate due to affordability, location, access to transport and other issues there is a higher likelihood of the arrangements breaking down with the woman (and children) experiencing subsequent episodes of homelessness or returning the violent home situation.
There are important historical and resource reasons why the prevailing paradigm of service delivery for women escaping violence has evolved. In response to the threat of homelessness, crisis accommodation services, particularly women’s refuges and shelters, have played a pivotal role in raising public awareness of domestic violence and enabling women to stay in safe and secure accommodation. Many women will always require this option at the point of escaping the violence. However some shifts in thinking and in policy and power considerations, which promote women’s rights to choose their options, including the option to remain in their own home, are both possible and necessary. As one woman said:
Why do we women live in refuges when the perpetrators live in the comfort to which they are accustomed? Why must we three eke out a living on a pension of $330 per week of which $130 goes in rent while my husband lives on his salary of $750 per week of which $85 goes on the mortgage and lives alone in a four bedroom, two bathroom house.
Enabling this woman, and many like her, to remain in their homes requires a change in service orthodoxy and legal, judicial, police and housing responses to ensure women’s and children’s safety. Such changes will not occur without the political goodwill to challenge the status quo of women and children being forced to leave the home as a result of domestic violence.
The full Report ‘Home Safe Home’, with Recommendations, is available from the Commonwealth Office for the Status of Women’s Partnerships Against Domestic Violence, Commonwealth of Australia, 2000.
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