Public Interest Law Centre criticises “systemic gatekeeping” by local authorities of housing support for domestic abuse survivors

Survivors of domestic abuse in London are at risk of further mistreatment because councils are dragging their feet over housing support, the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) has claimed.

In a report titled Abused twice: the ‘gatekeeping’ of housing support for domestic abuse survivors in every London borough, PILC said housing was a major barrier to women and girls fleeing abuse, most of whom have the legal right to access emergency housing and longer-term safe and secure accommodation.

Councils were though placing of bureaucratic or other obstacles in the way of those seeking statutory support - a practice the PILC labelled ‘gatekeeping’.

It said it had conducted research across all 32 London boroughs and had sent a submission to Communities Secretary Simon Clarke and London mayor Sadiq Khan calling for an independent investigation into what it called “local authorities’ widespread failure to provide housing support to domestic abuse survivors”.

The report said ‘gatekeeping’ was a systemic issue across London and took a variety of forms.

These included long and sometimes unlawful delays in decisions, offers of unsuitable accommodation, failures to provide emergency accommodation and the use of unlawfully high evidence thresholds before support is provided.

Unlawful delays saw domestic abuse applicants “left in precarious and often dangerous situations…councils leave it to domestic abuse survivors to chase continuously to ensure that their application is dealt with”, the report said.

“This is not a question of isolated incidents or a few ‘bad apple’ boroughs. Delays and poor communication are systemic issues facing survivors when applying for housing support across all London local authorities.”

Use  of unlawful evidence thresholds saw demands for police evidence as corroboration of domestic abuse or requirements for documentation of past incidences of abuse.

The report said: “Such high evidential thresholds make it more difficult for domestic abuse survivors to access the support they are legally entitled to.

“Moreover, in such cases, most survivors are unaware that the local authority is acting unlawfully by requiring such evidence, with many being wrongly led to believe that they are not entitled to support.”

Examples were also found of failures to apply the statutory definition of domestic abuse, use of value judgements by housing officers and refusal of support until there was a threat of legal action.

The report noted: “The law is clear in prohibiting value judgements. Yet housing officers are continuing to apply their own preconceptions and belittle survivors’ experiences.”

Survivors were in some cases wrongly instructed to stay in or leave their borough.

London Councils, the umbrella body for the capital’s boroughs, declined to comment.

Mark Smulian