Calls are being made for tens of thousands more social homes to be built in Scotland amid concerns the lack of it stops people leaving an abusive partner.
Figures from Shelter Scotland show 4,832 applications were made to councils from people experiencing homelessness who said they left their old address due to violence or abuse, between April 2019 and March.
The charity is now calling for 37,100 new social homes to be built over the next five years to tackle the need.
Alison Watson, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “We support efforts to change the law so that wherever possible survivors of domestic abuse can stay in their homes, and perpetrators are made to leave.
READ MORE: Domestic abuse laws: Suspects to be evicted from victims' homes
“But where that isn’t an option, access to social housing must be made easier and the only way to do that is to build the homes Scotland needs.”
The charity has put forward a woman known as Lucy – not her real name – who was sent to a hostel after leaving an abusive partner.
She is now part of the charity’s Time for Change group in Aberdeen.
Lucy said: “It wasn’t safe. There were fights every night. The noise was horrendous. Doors would be slammed.
READ MORE: 1,700 crimes recorded under new domestic abuse laws
“I could even hear punches being thrown. Men would chap on my door. It was really threatening and it made me really ill being there.
“I ended up going back to my ex-partner. I was never more at risk of being hurt.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here