Provide housing for perpetrators to allow victims to stay safe in their homes

COVID-19 has brought to the forefront the importance of a safe home but for domestic abuse victims, home is often where the harm is. 

We need the government to provide adequate housing for perpetrators of domestic abuse, allowing victims – where they feel safe to – to stay in their own homes. 

We think it is wrong that children and adults who have been abused and terrorised by a perpetrator who lives with them should be the ones who have to move somewhere else - and so does the government. 

On 11 April 2020, the Home Secretary Priti Patel MP said that where it was possible, “perpetrators should be the ones who have to leave the family home, not the supposed loved ones whom they torment and abuse.”

That’s why Respect and Drive alongside 34 signatories that span from Police and Crime Commissioners, leading domestic abuse frontline services and charities, academics, and local government, have come together to write to Minister Robert Jenrick asking the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to support risk-managed accommodation for perpetrators of domestic abuse. 

We’ve asked him to review this situation and to ensure that adequate housing is provided for perpetrators, allowing victims – where they feel safe to – to stay in their own homes. 

This would help to decrease the risk of abuse to families and increase their safety.

Read the full background paper here.