Protea Place urges community and government to create more social housing
Building long-term housing for women fleeing domestic violence will save money, create jobs and reduce the number of women returning to violence. Here’s how.
Toowoomba
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The complete lack of long-term accommodation for Toowoomba women fleeing domestic violence is costing the community, as well as all levels of government, millions of unnecessary dollars and forcing victims back into homes with their abusers, and support services say the time to build is now.
Toowoomba mother, Michelle* is all too aware of how the current regional Queensland social housing shortage is affecting women trying to flee homes where they are terrorised by domestic violence.
She and her young daughter managed to escape their home with nothing but the clothes on their back following years of spousal and family related domestic abuse.
“My daughter and I managed to get into a women’s refuge, and while it was a safe place over our heads the cramped and controlled conditions weren’t ideal for my mental health.
“Those five months were hard on us both and caused me to enter a very bad bout of depression,” she said.
“Fortunately, I was able to connect with the incredible women at Protea Place who have managed to find me a job and a rental property of our own through the Welcome Home project.
“We’ve been in our new house for a month now and I’m still walking around pinching myself.”
Sadly, Michelle and her daughter are only two of the more than 9000 Australian women and children facing homelessness each year after leaving a violent partner.
Family and domestic violence costs Australia $22 billion per year with one woman murdered every 10 days by an intimate partner in 2018-2019 and 112,509 family and domestic violence related incidents recorded by police in 2019-2020 – and this are only the incidents that are being reported.
Social housing experts have recently released new figures which reveals building new social housing to support people fleeing family violence would more than pay for itself in averted costs and economic spin-off benefits.
The “Nowhere To Go” Equity Economics report analysed the benefits of providing long-term social housing to victims of family violence, finding it is the leading reason women and children seek specialist homelessness services.
CEO of Toowoomba-based non-government funded women’s support service Protea Place, Amanda Dalton said social housing experts around the world had known for decades that long-term housing simply made good economic sense.
“Money talks, so if this report says we can halve the costs associated with social housing simply by building more long-term accommodation and reducing the number of people we bounce from emergency hostels to emergency refuges we should be doing everything within our power to achieve this,” she said.
“There are currently no long-term housing options for Toowoomba women escaping violence, only Department of Housing accommodation and two domestic violence refuges that are always full and women are literally stuck in limbo for months, unable to exit to long-term housing and unable to get their life back on track.”
The report commissioned by Everybody’s Home found that if the Commonwealth Government invested in 16,800 additional social housing units, the $7.6 billion cost would be dwarfed by immediate economic benefits of $15.3 billion and the creation of 47,000 new jobs.
“Local, state and federal government as well as property developers and private investors all need to look at different options for social housing projects within the Toowoomba region to see what is beneficial and financially viable,” Ms Dalton said.
“Unfortunately our region is woefully underfunded in terms of social housing, and while we do have members of parliament such as David Janetzki fighting hard to secure more funding and support for Toowoomba, in the meantime more and more women and children are forced to live in refuges where the conditions are not ideal, particularly for women who want to stand on their own two feel and reclaim their independence following a controlling domestic relationship.”
The report also found the additional social housing would generate savings of $122.5 million a year due to women not returning to a violent partner and a further $257 million a year in savings due to women not experiencing homelessness after leaving their homes due to family and domestic violence.
National spokesman Kate Colvin said the research made a compelling economic and social case for an investment that would keep 10s of thousands Australian women and children safe.
“By building more social housing, the Federal Government can inject billions of dollars into our economy, create tens of thousands of jobs and prove it is serious about helping victims of domestic and family violence.”
*Michelle’s real name has been retracted to protect her identity.
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