On Sunday evening I sat outside a pub in west London with a group of women, some of whom were crying. A man on a nearby table asked us why we were there, presuming a birthday party gone wrong, or a messy breakup had led to the scene. We were vague and cagey with our answer: “We live in a domestic violence refuge and we’re facing immediate homelessness and danger, so called a journalist for help” isn’t generally a great conversation starter.
Just after midnight that morning, the ceiling had collapsed in one woman’s bedroom: mercifully, she was visiting friends that night. The fact she has a condition that puts her at high risk of a heart attack doesn’t bear thinking about. For two weeks prior in the refuge, the sprinkler system had been leaking heavily: the women showed me the flooding they endured – ankle deep in some bedrooms, and wallpaper bulging with stale water.
Finally, the leak caused the ceiling to fall in. They rang the fire brigade and the housing association that owns the house and the charity that runs the shelter service. When the emergency services arrived, a firefighter told them that if anyone turned on the power, the entire building would go up in flames. Removing a plug from the wall, he swore as water poured from the socket. They were left with torches and barely managed to sleep: seven women, and six children between the ages of two and seven, crowded into the communal living room.
Their children are in play schemes in west London, where they’re building confidence after fleeing abuse and violence
Then matters worsened. The women were phoned individually by the housing association and told they’d be put in temporary accommodation – with no guarantee of when they would return – in Barking, 15 miles away: an hour away on public transport, even though the women’s doctors, counsellors, key workers and friends are all in west London. The children are in play schemes in west London, where they’re building confidence and making friends after fleeing abuse and violence. But worse: some of the women have ex-partners in Barking and east London, men who have told them that if they ever saw them again, they would murder them. One of the mothers was promised that if her husband ever had the opportunity he’d lock her and her son in the house and burn it to the ground.
Understandably terrified, they all refused, and were told there would be nothing else offered. By doing this, they were putting themselves at risk of being declared “intentionally homeless”, meaning they would be out on the streets with the housing association refusing to help.