Domestic violence shelters in Queensland say they are struggling to make space for new arrivals, with the housing crisis forcing women to stay in some refuges for years.
The added strain on the sector has created a bottleneck , with shelters having to place some women in hotels or refuges far from their support networks.
Save the Children – which now operates under the name 54 Reasons in Australia – runs seven refuges across the state and its Queensland director, Mena Waller, said it was facing incredibly high demand.
“There’s absolutely not enough refuge placements that we can offer women and children,” Waller said. “So at the moment, our capacity is full and if you do have a vacancy, it’s usually filled within 24 hours.”
Another south-east Queensland refuge, Women’s House Shelta, is also at capacity. “Most people would say this is sort of an unprecedented time for refuges,” said a refuge worker, Julia Dawson.
“We’ve never experienced this level of [being] unable to move women into safe accommodation. We get calls every day from women who are still not in safe situations and at risk of violence … but the women who are high risk get prioritised.”
Tracey Makoni, service delivery manager at DV Connect, said shelters were only funded to house people for up to 12 weeks – but they were seeing women stay up to three years due to the housing crisis.
“We’re finding that there’s a limited availability of sheltered accommodation for new clients, that are still the escaping violence at any given point,” she said. “At times we’re having women travel greater distances … if we can’t identify any vacancies.”
In some cases, DV Connect advised victims to stay with family or placed them in hotels until a space opened up.
Makoni said this could lead to overcrowding in family situations and increasing violence.
She said many of the women seeking refuge were not eligible for financial support due to their visa status. Others could not compete with other would-be tenants when making rental applications, due to their incomes.
“The only thing holding them back is [a] lack of alternative [social] housing,” Makoni said. “But then there’s also the long waiting list … of eight years.”
As rent inflation in Queensland outpaces all other jurisdictions, the state has seen the highest increases in homelessness in the nation. To address this, the state government has proposed limiting rent increases to once a year or tying them to CPI.
But Dawson, who works at Women’s House Shelta, said domestic violence refuges were feeling “forgotten about” in the lead-up to a housing roundtable next week.
“It has a huge negative effect on women to stay in refuge isolated … you can’t have people over, you can’t tell anyone where you’re living … you don’t know where you might end up,” she said.
“I think there’s a serious risk of suicidality in women not being able to see hope and a life outside of refuge.”
Waller said while rent caps would be helpful, the government had to make a “significant investment in refuge”, including the delivery of wraparound services.
“Stable and secure housing both for women and for children is really crucial for their wellbeing and sense of safety,” she said. “Hearing from people with lived experience is absolutely at the core of understanding and being able to respond appropriately to the problem.”
On Monday the Department of Housing said the government is investing $3.9bn in social and affordable housing.
“This investment means we are housing more vulnerable Queenslanders sooner. In fact, we will have commenced 13,000 new social and affordable homes by 2027,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said after the housing summit, the government has committed $23.5m to provide more accommodation and services for those experiencing homelessness.
“As part of this commitment, we have leased a property in Brisbane to provide immediate emergency accommodation for vulnerable people,” they said.
“We are continuing to work with community organisations and the private sector to identify more under-utilised or empty properties that can be used for emergency temporary accommodation.”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
