Safe as Houses Report: How the system is failing women and children fleeing abuse in London

The Safe as Houses report reaffirms our long-term commitment to putting housing at the top of the agenda for women fleeing VAWG and builds on our report published in 2016, ‘The Price of Safety’.It evidences the need for radical change but also offers solutions to improve the situation for women fleeing abuse in London.

In the summer of 2019, Solace carried out research into current homelessness practice across London, including the impact of the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) one year after its implementation. We surveyed both survivors fleeing VAWG and frontline workers on their experiences of London’s housing and
homelessness systems.

The results of both surveys were comprehensively damning, indicating that:

• The current system is failing to protect women and children when they need it most; and
• Except for isolated pockets of good practice, the implementation of the HRA (2017) has so far failed to deliver the hoped-for improvements for women seeking safety in London.