Calls for more social housing to help domestic abuse victims

Calls are being made for tens of thousands more social homes to be built in Scotland amid concerns the lack of it stops people leaving an abusive partner.

Figures from Shelter Scotland show 4832 applications were made to councils from people experiencing homelessness who said they left their old address due to violence or abuse, between April 2019 and March.

The charity is now calling for 37,100 new social homes to be built over the next five years to tackle the need.

Alison Watson, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “We support efforts to change the law so that wherever possible survivors of domestic abuse can stay in their homes, and perpetrators are made to leave.

“But where that isn’t an option, access to social housing must be made easier and the only way to do that is to build the homes Scotland needs.”

The charity has put forward a woman known as Lucy – not her real name – who was sent to a hostel after leaving an abusive partner.

She is now part of the charity’s Time for Change group in Aberdeen.
Lucy said: “It wasn’t safe. There were fights every night. The noise was horrendous. Doors would be slammed.

“I could even hear punches being thrown. Men would chap on my door. It was really threatening and it made me really ill being there.

“I ended up going back to my ex-partner. I was never more at risk of being hurt.”