Domestic Abuse Housing Strategy

Introduction

Domestic abuse can have devastating, far reaching and long-lasting consequences on victims and survivors, their families and the wider community. Dartford Borough Council (‘the Council’) believes that no one should experience or live in fear of domestic abuse, and takes a zero tolerance approach towards it.

This Strategy sets out a plan and policy statement for how the Council’s Housing Service will assist and support victims and survivors of domestic abuse.

For the purpose of this Strategy, victims and survivors are used to describe those with lived experiences of domestic abuse. A victim is defined as someone who is still recovering from the harm that has come to them. A survivor is defined as someone who has gone through the recovery process following the abuse.

Vision of this Strategy

The overall vision of this Domestic Abuse Housing Strategy is set in line with the Council’s aspirations to “make Dartford a place of quality, choice and safety”.

In the context of the Council’s corporate aim, our vision is to ensure that victims and survivors of domestic abuse have access to a range of housing services that support clear and accessible pathways to housing, help and support where victims and survivors can live safely, securely and free of abuse.

What is Domestic Abuse?

The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 defines domestic abuse as abusive behaviour between two people who are aged 16 or over and who are personally connected to each other.

Behaviour is defined as abusive if it includes any of the following –

  • Physical or sexual abuse
  • Violent or threatening behaviour
  • Controlling or coercive behaviour
  • Economic abuse
  • Psychological, emotional or other abuse

Economic abuse means any behaviour that has a substantial adverse effect on the victim or survivors ability to:

  1. acquire, use or maintain money or other property, or
  2. obtain goods or services.

The behaviour experienced by abuse may also be intimidating or threatening. Domestic abuse occurs when a current or ex-partner or family member uses power to control a person.

It does not matter whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct.

Domestic abuse happens between two people, but is not limited to personal, intimate relationships between partners. The Domestic Abuse Act sets out the different relationships between two people where domestic abuse can occur:

  • They are, or have been, married to each other
  • They are, or have been, civil partners of each other
  • They have agreed to marry one another (whether or not the agreement has been terminated)
  • They have entered into a civil partnership agreement (whether or not the agreement has been terminated)
  • They are, or have been, in an intimate personal relationship with each other
  • They each have, or there has been a time when they each have had, a parental relationship in relation to the same child
  • They are relatives

The Act also defines victims as those who have experienced domestic abuse, and includes children who have seen, heard or experienced the effects of the abusive behaviour.

How many people are victims/survivors of domestic abuse?

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated that 5.0% of adults (6.9% women and 3.0% men) aged 16 years and over experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2022. This is an estimated 2.4 million adults (1.7 million women and 699,000 men).

Between October 2021 and March 2022, a higher percentage of adults experienced domestic abuse by a partner or ex-partner (3.5%) than by a family member (2.1%) in the last year. Of those who experienced partner abuse, 84.3% experienced non-physical abuse, 12.9% experienced a sexual assault and 20.8% experienced stalking (ONS).

Who are the victims/survivors of domestic abuse?

While proportionally more women than men are affected by domestic abuse, it can happen to anyone and can affect different groups of people in different ways:

  • Approximately 7 in 100 women and 3 in 100 men experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2022.4 Despite this, significantly more survivors who identified as female (93%) accessed community support services in Kent, compared to 5.4% of males in 2021/22 (KCC).
  • Stonewall suggests that more than a quarter (28%) of transgendered people in a relationship in the last year have faced domestic abuse from a partner.
  • In England, white women are seen to be more at risk of domestic abuse than ethnic minority women, with 7.4% reported being victims of abuse compared with 4.4% of ethnic minority women (Equality and Human Rights Commission).
  • SafeLives data shows that 2.5% of people accessing domestic abuse support identified as LGBT+. SafeLives say that Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) and domestic abuse services should expect to see more than 2.5% of referrals for LGBT+ people.

However, it is important to remember that domestic abuse is under-reported and is often a hidden crime that is not reported to the police.