The housing crisis is leading to an increase in women and children exposed to domestic violence entering homelessness, a new report has found.
The report from the National Women’s Council examines how the housing crisis is impacting on women living in violent situations.
The Housing Precarity, Homelessness and Violence against Women and Girls report said women and children are finding themselves “trapped between the housing crisis and rising levels of homelessness and shocking levels of domestic abuse, sexual violence, exploitation and control against women”.
National Women’s Council Violence Against Women Coordinator Ivanna Youtchak said the key finding of the report is finding the solutions that are needed to escape from violent relationships.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime, Ms Youtchak said: “One reinforces the other. If you are in a violent relationship, you want to leave that relationship. You need places to go.
“If you don’t have places to go you either have to choose to sleep rough, with children in many cases, or with your abuser. That makes you more vulnerable to predators.”
The report details that for “many women, domestic abuse is the direct cause of their homelessness” and calls for solutions, including declaring a housing emergency.
It also calls for introducing a “housing first response” to domestic, sexual, gender-based violence “based on recognition that stable housing is critical to safety, to dealing with trauma and ultimately to recovery” as well as addressing “perpetrator accountability”.
Ms Youtchak added that we do not only need more refuges for women and children, but to “understand that in many cases, women and children need to stay at home if it safe to do so”.
She said there are other ways to address this, such as removing the perpetrator from the home, adding that there are provisions in law here, but “the threshold for evidence is very high”.
On sex for rent advertisements, Ms Youtchak said the online platforms need to be held accountable, adding that a pre-legislative report on the Prohibition of Advertising or Importuning Sex for Rent Bill 2025 has recommended this.
One of the recommendations from the report details that women who are victims of domestic violence living in emergency accommodation refuges are not included in the national homelessness figures and must be included going forward.
“Counting (them) also allows us to have a better and more accurate picture of what is going on. Also, it allows women to access more supports.
“Currently, because they are not registered as homeless, they can’t access, and the care providers for the frontline services struggle to find a way to support them because of these barriers,” she said.
“Women in refuge need to be counted as homeless and access supports, accordingly.”
Ms Youtchak said the Government must look at emergency and long-term support, with more emergency accommodation as well as access to social housing for victims.
“The new housing plan recognises domestic violence as one of the key drivers for homelessness for women, but we need core actions that address all of these issues because otherwise it won’t be solved and women will have nowhere to go when they are in violent relationships,” she added.