The government promised domestic abuse survivors safe accommodation – so why has it snubbed offers from hotels?

Following stark warnings from charities and campaigners about the troubling surge of domestic abuse during lockdown, Priti Patel, the home secretary, recently launched a government awareness campaign to shed light on the services that are still available to survivors who are trapped with their abusers.

Since lockdown, during which domestic abuse killings appear to have more than doubled in the UK, Patel has assured the nation that the government is doing everything it can to keep vulnerable people safe. During the daily government press conference on 11 April, she said: “Where a victim, and their children, do need to leave, we will ensure they have a safe place to go. That’s why we are looking at alternative accommodation to best support the work of refuges.” As part of the new initiative, Patel also pledged a £2m funding boost to bolster domestic abuse helplines and online support services.

With that news, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the government has ensured that all vulnerable women and children are able to safely flee abusive households – but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The women’s refuges that protect domestic abuse survivors are buckling under the strain of the pandemic, and the government has failed to deliver the funding or additional emergency accommodation needed to keep them going.

Though Patel has said the government has explored “alternative accommodation” for survivors, it seems some of the more logical options have been left off the table entirely. Instead of taking up offers from hostel and hotel chains offering tens of thousands of rooms to women and children fleeing domestic abuse, the government seems to have entirely dismissed an incredibly helpful means of ensuring more people have safe spaces to turn to.

Earlier this month, a written offer of hotel accommodation was sent to the government, with over 30 women’s charities, as well as the domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, and the victims commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Vera Baird, backing the initiative. 

Jess Phillips, the MP for Birmingham and Yardley and vocal campaigner against domestic abuse, has also called for the use of hotel rooms as safe accommodation. But still, our government has yet to respond to the offer, despite the urgent call for safe spaces for women. Campaigners have accused the government of “unnecessary, irresponsible and lethal” foot-dragging.

For an indication of just how shamefully inadequate the initiative is, consider the fact that women’s services were already operating on a shoestring before the pandemic. Following a decade of austerity, which slashed funding for refuges, one in six in the UK have been forced to close since 2010. This means refuge spaces are sparse, yet the demand for them is on the rise: more than 25 frontline services have reported an increase in caseloads since the start of the pandemic, while The National Domestic Abuse Helpline has reported a 25 per cent surge in calls since lockdown began. On a single day in April, calls to the helpline were up by a staggering 120 per cent.

Though they welcome the support, charities and campaigners have criticised the government’s campaign for failing to acknowledge the sheer scale of the problem, stressing a lack of funding for safe accommodation. To give you a sense of just how pitiful the £2m offering is, Women’s Aid has said that an emergency £48.2m fund is desperately needed to support frontline services during the crisis, 84 per cent of which have been forced to reduce or cancel their services in the wake of the pandemic.

Not only does Patel’s initiative lack funding for accommodation, but it also lacks understanding of the complexities of domestic abuse.

As activist David Challen so rightly points out on Twitter, the campaign “fails to raise basic awareness of lesser-known forms of abuse”, like coercive control and economic abuse, in its social media posts. How can the government expect survivors and the general public to identify abusive behaviour when it doesn’t seem to have a grasp on it itself?

The campaign, which uses the hashtag #YouAreNotAlone, urges people to share a “handprint embossed with a heart” on social media or in the windows of their home with a link to the support on offer for domestic abuse survivors. Just like the clapping for NHS workers and carers, this initiative seems painfully redundant without sufficient funding and housing to protect the very women and children that the government are urging to feel less alone.

Thankfully, few of us can imagine what it must feel like to be trapped with an abusive partner. Finding a safe moment to escape your perpetrator is extremely difficult in normal circumstances, and during a national lockdown, which can often aggravate existing violent behaviour towards women and children, it becomes even more difficult.

It is even harder then, to imagine a survivor of domestic abuse watching Patel’s speech, and finally feeling that there is a way to escape, only for that sense of safety to be ripped away from them when there is no refuge to flee to. This will become a devastating reality for many women, with potentially fatal consequences, unless the government provides targeted emergency funding for women’s services and commits to alternative accommodation for survivors.