Family violence: Government's $200m will go a long way to help abused women, refuges say

Sunday, 17 May 2020

Victim Specialist Halie Steiner talks about the issues with domestic violence.

On a quiet suburban street, behind a gate of reinforced steel, is a covert community of women and children.

They're hiding from abusive partners, or fathers, having escaped in the night.

Some families stay for a matter of days, while others have stayed so long they've enrolled their children in nearby schools,.

Safe houses are meant to be temporary, a few weeks until rental accommodation can be found, but the nation's housing crisis means some families are stuck there for months, even more than a year.

*** 'If we get it wrong someone dies': A day on the frontline of the Women's Refuge

* Waikato Women's Refuge opens its sixth safe house**

On Monday, the Government announced a $202m funding package for family and sexual violence service providers and programmes.

While it may not address the housing crisis, it will go directly to the groups involved with helping women and children, including refuges.

Green MP Jan Logie, an under-secretary to the justice minister, said the money would mean greater support for those who are abused.

'Refuges, helplines, crisis services and many other organisations sit at the heart of our response to families who are experiencing violence,' Logie said.

'At a time of national crisis we have never needed them more.'

As an essential service, refuges were still operating through the Covid-19 lockdown, Women's Refuge Collective chief executive Dr Ang Jury said.

In Waikato, the region's six safe houses are run by Waikato Women's Refuge Te Whakaruruhau, and collectively, they house upwards of 40-60 women and children.

Halie Steiner has worked at Women's Refuge in the Waikato for five years.

But it's not just Waikato families seeking solace at there, workers often field calls from colleagues across the country, pleading for an extra bed or two.

Women from as far as south Auckland, and sometimes even further north, were having to be housed in Waikato.

Residential team leader Lannell Wharekura has worked for the refuge for 12 years.

Originally, housing was split into crisis and transitional; crisis is for those that need to come in immediately, and transitional, where women get ready for life independent of the refuge.

'Currently because of our housing crisis, what that does for us is we don't have the ability to move whānau out.

'We have a cog-neck of whānau that are needing to come in, and as much as we try and compact spaces up in here, there's a big wait.'

Women escaping abusive relationships were also returning to violent partners, Jury said.

She said although the average stay for a woman in a safe house was about 24 nights, it didn't reflect the crisis, and a lack of housing stock was a huge problem.

Thursday's Budget saw a promise by the Government to deliver an extra 8,000 new public and transitional homes, a move that will stimulate the residential construction sector, create jobs and reduce the housing shortage, Minister of Housing Megan Woods, said.

This investment is in addition to the 6,400 public housing homes currently being built, in the pipeline or otherwise delivered, and the 1,000 transitional homes announced in February as part of the Homelessness Action Plan.

The supply of affordable long-term accommodation is tight across the country, which adds pressure to both the social and private rental markets, a Ministry of Social Development spokesman said.

The ministry helps with bonds and rent in advance to help them into the private market, and also checks whether they're eligible for social housing.

They also fund more than 50 refuges for services including advocacy, risk assessments, counselling, case management and safety planning.