The housing crisis is keeping women in potentially dangerous situations, Women’s Aid has said.
Sarah Benson, chief executive of the domestic violence charity, said it expects to see “a spike in calls” from women early in the new year following the festive period.
Women’s Aid estimates it will receive about 60 calls a day to its helpline over the Christmas period, with its instant messaging service also in operation.
“Early in the new year we get a spike in calls from women, where things are being held together, walking on egg shells all through Christmas and then in the new year people are back to work and the children back to school and there are discussions of what are my options around safety,” she said.
Ms Benson said the housing crisis along with the cost of living remain significant factors for women who are caught in abusive relationships.
“Economic abuse is one of the most impactful forms of abuse any day of the year, because if you don’t have means, leaving becomes much more difficult,” she said. “But it becomes particularly weaponised at Christmas time.
“It’s a more expensive time of the year, there’s more expectations particularly if there’s children. If a couple is still together and there’s abuse it can be weaponised in order to leverage things such as ‘there won’t be a Christmas dinner’ or ‘there won’t be Santa’.”
Ms Benson said while the Government’s new housing plan named domestic violence as a significant factor in women and children’s homelessness, this needs to be recognised in legislation.
“We can build more refuges, and we need more refuges, but all we’re going to do is create a larger bottleneck than we currently have because the pipeline into secure, safe, medium to long-term housing after refuge is completely constrained by the impact of the housing crisis,” she added.
Ms Benson said there needs to be a provision to allow someone to be removed from a local authority tenancy where they are perpetrating domestic violence in the same way they can be removed from a tenancy for antisocial behaviour, where they may be putting their neighbours in fear or causing them distress.
The Department of Housing said there is a commitment as part of the most recent domestic, sexual and gender based violence strategy, to review 2017 guidance for housing authorities in relation to assisting victims of domestic violence with emergency and long-term accommodation needs.
“Work is ongoing on updating the 2017 guidelines to clarify that housing authorities should support the victim to remain in the home or return to the home wherever possible once it is safe to do so and it is the victim’s preference,” it said.
The department added that an examination of the current legislative position regarding joint social housing tenancies has taken place, however further work is required to “consider the implications of the review, including whether legislative change is appropriate in such cases”.
“This is a complex area and requires detailed and careful analysis, which is ongoing. It can be understood that this area is of particular focus for Minister [for Housing James] Browne since he took office.”