Domestic violence survivors are being forced to choose between homelessness and returning to an abusive partner because Centrelink’s systems are ill-equipped to support them into the rental market.
Women often have “nowhere to go” when trying to leave their abuser and so are often forced back into violent relationships, Anglicare chief executive Kasy Chambers told The New Daily.
Anglicare’s housing affordability snapshot, which surveyed 70,000 properties in a single weekend to assess housing costs nationwide, found that a single mother with two children would only reasonably be able to afford 3.8 per cent of available rentals.
Even then, a greater hurdle remains, in that survivors often can’t access the full Newstart payments when leaving their abusers either because they don’t have access to their bank accounts or because Centrelink often assesses benefit payments for couples rather than individuals, Ms Chambers said.
Source: Centrelink processes stopping domestic violence survivors from renting