Given my reason for first entering the domestic abuse realm over twenty-five years
ago was as a result of someone close to me being murdered by her ex-husband; I was
(and still am) heavily invested in the victim journey and this was very much the area of
the research that I was most keen to give a voice to. I felt a strong connection with the
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that so many women’s voices living with abuse could not be heard or had been permanently silenced by male violence.
I felt in an extremely privileged position to be invited into a woman’s home, their personal place of safety and to hear about their experiences in some detail. I believe
that it was very useful to interview a range of women in both the refuge and in their
own homes. The one to one victim interview participants had not spent a lot of time in
a refuge (one woman had in a previous abusive relationship and another was
interviewed whilst living in a refuge) so the information obtained via the group interview
added a multi-layered picture to the research overall and provided an insight to those
women who had to leave their home to live in a refuge. The information gained from
the group interview group offered much insight into waiting for a property and living in
a refuge where women were essentially waiting for a home and thereby an opportunity
to rebuild their lives. As a housing professional it was humbling to hear the importance
of a good offer of property can make to a woman and what it represented in their
recovery.
I felt that as the women knew that I worked in the housing sector was a useful factor
in that they could easily explain processes and experiences they had encountered and
knew I would understand what they were saying without having to ask for more detail.
Whilst this was positive and served as a shorthand; my role as an employee at Gentoo
was a potential barrier to be negotiated. One woman alluded to having a bad
experience with a local housing provider and was not sure if she could tell me about it
as I worked at Gentoo, stating: ‘Well I’m frightened to talk to you because I don’t go with Gentoo, I like - I’m from [mentions area].’ She asked if I would tell the other
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housing provider about her bad experience as she was worried they might make it
difficult for her. I reassured her that what she told me would not be shared with other
providers and that if I wrote about it, it would be anonymously to illustrate a point, she
went on to tell me about the experience she had had in detail.
Once we had stopped recording and I was packing my things still chatting informally
with the women, they said they thought it would be useful to know more about housing
such as knowledge on getting on housing waiting lists and how a homeless application
was processed as they felt they had no power in making a homeless application and
a sense of being ‘done to’. I asked them if it would be useful if I asked someone from Gentoo to attend a house meeting to explain applying for a Gentoo property and
someone from a local council to come and outline the homeless application process.
After discussing this with the refuge manager, plans were established to attend a
house meeting to outline Gentoo’s allocations process and I said that I would contact the Local Housing Authority to invite them to outline the homeless application process.
As a researcher I felt it was morally right to action something I could do to attempt to
ease the feelings of powerlessness the women had identified and resonated with my
view research should seek to make a difference; not only on a systemic level but also
to individuals. Additionally, the negative experiences of women in understanding their
rights under homeless legislation making them powerless and the anxiety this created
for them greatly frustrated me.
Following interviews with women I often reflected on what they had disclosed to me
and wondered how they were progressing with their recovery. Whilst there was much
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not prepared for when leaving the refuge after conducting a group interview I
encountered a child on my way out. She wanted to tell me she was going to a new
school in another part of the country and was having to move into a new house before
the start of the new school term as they had had to move out of their home. I reflected
on this on my journey home and have since reflected on it often and thought about
how the child was progressing her new school, did she feel safe in her new home and
had she made friends? I found the conversation upsetting in the way she spoke to me
in a resigned manner about a situation that she had no control over. The child’s mother had been in the focus group and felt she had no control over accessing social housing
in an area she wanted to live, so felt she had no choice but to secure a private sector
tenancy. Whilst it had been difficult to hear about the situation from the woman – hearing the child’s resignation was even more depressing and made me feel extremely angry at the situation they were placed in – after leaving an abusive partner, yet still with no control over their lives. On this theme, a consortium of housing providers
(including Gentoo) have commissioned a PhD around children’s sense of home on domestic abuse whereby issues experienced by the child would be highlighted and
had potential to influence the housing sector. Whilst this is positive it didn’t address the practical issues facing the woman and child that day but reinforced to me the
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