Homelessness in York linked to domestic abuse dozens of times during pandemic
Nearly 60 families were affected during the year to March 2021.
Domestic abuse pushed York people into homelessness or put them at risk of losing their homes dozens of times during the coronavirus pandemic, figures reveal.
A spike in such cases nationally has been branded “shocking” by domestic abuse charities, which are calling for more funding to help survivors.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data shows in the year to March, the council in York found 31 households had become homeless, while 28 needed help to prevent them from losing their home because of domestic abuse.
It means a total of 59 families needed housing help because of domestic abuse – 10 more than the previous year.
Across England, councils received 31,180 requests for help from households who had lost their accommodation or were threatened with homelessness due to domestic abuse in 2020-21 – a 17% increase on the year before.
Of those, almost half were households with children.
Though the gender of the person applying for help is not specified, separate figures from the Office for National Statistics show women are more than twice as likely to be victims of domestic abuse as men.
Sophie Francis-Cansfield, policy manager at Women’s Aid, said: “It’s shocking that, in 2021, women fleeing domestic abuse still face the terrifying prospect of either returning to their perpetrator or facing homelessness.
“We continue to face a shortage of bed spaces in specialist refuge services, and this has a huge impact for women at a time when they are most in need of support.”
She added the charity's research showed women who survive domestic abuse, some pregnant or with children, are still sleeping rough, with black and minoritized women being disproportionately affected.
The Government said it was spending an "unprecedented" £750 million on tackling rough sleeping and homelessness and that the MHCLG figures showed a 7.3% drop in families needing support from homelessness services in the year to March.
The Local Government Association said councils had worked tirelessly to tackle homelessness during the pandemic.
Yvonne Morrissey from the Peasholme Charity in York said:
"The pandemic created additional pressures for families that were previously probably able to access support services. And because of those services were either closed or working remotely, people were left isolated and the ongoing pandemic created a pressure cooker.
"It's worrying for those nearly 60 families because they may not have ended up in that situation if other services had been available for them and now they need help to recover from incidents that have happened and helped to remove safe as soon as possible and be looked after in that way."
David Renard, housing spokesman, said: “The increase in households with children who were homeless or threatened with homelessness due to domestic abuse is deeply worrying.
“We want to work with Government on a cross-departmental long-term homelessness prevention strategy and tackle our housing shortage as we recover from the pandemic.”
A spokesman for the MHCLG said: "We’re ensuring councils provide specialist support, so those who leave their home to escape domestic abuse have somewhere safe to go and we’re backing this with £125 million funding – this is alongside a pioneering £3.7 million Respite Room trial, providing safe housing and support for victims at risk of sleeping rough.”