Significant investment and innovative approaches are needed, from primary prevention through to recovery.
Embolden joins the call from SA’s social services sector for next week’s budget to focus on safe and affordable housing and domestic violence support.
Susie Smith, Embolden Co-Chair, states:
Culturally safe, accessible, affordable and secure long-term housing is a fundamental need for everyone, and particularly so for survivors to heal and thrive post-crisis.
“Critically, we need a budget that will address the lack of housing options for survivors, including more safe exit points from crisis services, and more social housing, particularly in regional areas. This is a challenge that has been ongoing for some time, and now needs an urgent response as a result of COVID-19 and subsequent squeeze on the rental market for properties available to women and their children, particularly in the regions, and for those on lower incomes.
Overall, frontline services and programs in the domestic, family and sexual violence sectors continue to be desperately underfunded, particularly in the face of surging violence against women and their children. Significant increases in long term, stable and flexible funding that allows services to tailor their supports to each family’s unique situation is what we would like to see, as well as significant investment and innovative approaches across the landscape, from primary prevention through to recovery”