Homelessness: Domestic Abuse
(asked on 30th January 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the number of victims of domestic abuse who are (a) homeless and (b) sleeping rough in (i) London and (ii) England.
Domestic abuse is a devastating crime that nobody should have to suffer. Supporting victims of domestic abuse is an absolute priority for this Government. Councils have a legal duty to provide accommodation to families and others who are vulnerable as a result of fleeing domestic abuse. The Homelessness Reduction Act requires councils to take reasonable steps for all eligible households who are homeless, to help them secure accommodation.
We have overhauled the statutory homelessness data collection alongside the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act. This will give us better insights into the causes of homelessness and the support people need, including where someone is accepted as homeless because they were vulnerable as a result of having fled their home because of domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, alongside other reasons for acceptance.
The Department does not hold information on the number of victims of domestic abuse who have slept rough or are homeless in London and England.
However, we do hold data for the numbers of households who have been accepted as owed a homelessness duty, where the main reason for the loss of a last settled home was due to a violent relationship breakdown with a partner. These statistics are available for each local authority area, and previous years at:
London’s Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), a multi-agency database recording information about rough sleepers and the wider street population in London, records new rough sleepers' reasons for leaving their last settled base prior to first being seen rough sleeping. In 2017/18, 90 people left their last settled base because they were a victim of violence, harassment or abuse. These statistics are available at: