The Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) programme was launched in 2014 through the ongoing partnership of three agencies: Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, Peabody, and Gentoo – all leaders in innovative solutions to address domestic abuse within housing.
We recognised that domestic abuse is a housing issue. It is estimated that 2 million people were subjected to domestic abuse in England and Wales. According to the Femicide Census 2020 70% of women the home. For people experiencing domestic abuse, the home is often the most dangerous place.
Housing is the primary barrier for women attempting to leave abusive situations. We’ve also seen that domestic abuse is one of the highest causes of homelessness amongst women.
There are longstanding issues with the inadequacy of the response to domestic abuse across society. Abuse goes undetected and existing systems are often overwhelmed. The distress, misery and trauma caused by domestic abuse exists at an enormous scale.
Thousands of victims find it difficult to access effective help; SafeLives research revealed that 85% of victims of abuse sought help five times on average from professionals in the year before they got effective help to stop the abuse. In another report by Gentoo and SafeLives we learn that 65% of cases reported as Anti Social Behaviour, (ASB) in fact were rooted in domestic abuse. There have been several Domestic Homicide Reviews where we see that where housing providers have dealt with domestic abuse as ASB, the consequences have been catastrophic. Effective early intervention by housing agencies and organisations can help protect adults and children from harm, hold the perpetrators of abuse to account, and prevent escalation and recurrence of abuse. Early intervention can save lives.
Home and safety are fundamental human rights. DAHA’s vision is for a future where every victim/survivor (including children) can choose a home where they are safe and live free from domestic abuse. Those who use abusive behaviour must be visible and held to account for the fear and harm that they cause. Too often, we see victim blaming across society, “why doesn’t she just leave?” The question should always be, “why doesn’t the abuser stop?” We need to flip the narrative and move our focus onto the perpetrator. Survivors of abuse need to have choice. “Would you like to stay in your home?” If the answer is yes, then the question for all agencies is, “What are we doing about the perpetrator so that their victim (including children as are now recognised in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021) can be safe at home. Too quickly, many professionals move to “you must move to be safe” when we must ask, why should a survivor uproot themselves, and their children and move to a different location, often away from their own support networks, when they have done nothing wrong?
Our mission is to enhance the UK housing sector’s status within the coordinated community response (CCR) to domestic abuse by transforming how they respond to domestic abuse so that victims/survivors have a home of their choice, where they are safe and live fear free.
DAHA Accreditation
DAHA designed an accreditation framework (see graphic below) to detect and respond to domestic abuse more effectively and enable new and more effective responses to domestic violence and abuse. Alongside helping reduce the very high human costs, DAHA Accreditation is also designed to help reduce associated housing management issues, such as rent arrears, eviction, nuisance, and homelessness triggered by domestic abuse. Both local authorities and housing providers are ideally placed to spot and respond to domestic abuse as the first point of contact.
Initially, DAHA relied on charitable grant funding pots to run the programme. These pots were always short term and restrictive in terms of delivery. In 2021 we became a membership model. We are proud to now be working with over 140 members who are adopting and embedding standards of good practice to achieve our award-winning accreditation mark, indicating their commitment to delivering safe and effective responses. Our ambition is for all local authorities and those who provide housing to commit to embedding standards of good practice in response to domestic abuse so removing the postcode lottery that exists for victims/survivors of domestic abuse across the UK.
Over the years, we have developed the accreditation framework for social housing providers and local authority housing teams. There are eight priority areas of practice with 43 standards that members must achieve to have a safe, consistent and effective response to domestic abuse. We conduct an in-depth assessment which is taken to an assessment panel to determine if members have met the accreditation standards. Over the years, since DAHA’s inception, we have evolved and developed to reflect our learning, the needs of the sector, the national environment and, crucially, the needs of survivors of domestic abuse. Possibly the most significant piece of legislation that has influenced our growth has been the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. This Act put a duty on local authorities to do more around domestic abuse including providing safe accommodation for all victims of domestic abuse. We have seen a significant rise in local authorities coming to us to work to embed standards of good practice. This is great news for survivors. We have recognised that there is a huge learning and development need for housing practitioners. The government’s Social Housing White Paper – published in 2020 – called for the need for professionalising of the housing sector. This has led us to develop our training offer.
We believe it is the responsibility of all housing organisations to ensure their staff has the skills, knowledge and tools that give them the confidence to identify domestic abuse and respond safely and appropriately.
We have created a suite of training programmes for housing professionals to identify and respond to domestic abuse effectively, safely, and consistently within their capacity as housing professionals. Our training is very different from the standard generic domestic abuse training often accessed by organisations. We have designed our training to speak to housing professionals, tailored to the different roles in housing. This is unique and sets DAHA’s training aside from others. We understand that housing professionals need to identify domestic abuse, and how it may manifest itself in a housing setting.
In addition to our accreditation work, we have worked hard to be a connector for the housing and domestic abuse sectors. We host and run a total of nine regional groups where senior housing, domestic abuse and local authority leaders meet to connect and share practice.
These groups then feed into our DAHA-led National Housing and Domestic Abuse Policy and Practice Group. This national group brings partners together across the housing and domestic abuse sectors to influence best policy and practice in response to the housing needs of survivors of domestic abuse. The group meets monthly and influences a range of issues and legislation, including joint tenancies, local connections, priority need (which was, as a direct result of our work, included in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021), support in safe accommodation, exempt accommodation, refuge provision and rough sleeping initiatives.
We are on our way to achieving our mission. DAHA is currently piloting a new accreditation framework for homelessness settings and also developing an accreditation framework for the Private Rented Sector (PRS). We have also developed an accreditation for contractors, in recognition that those tradespeople who go into homes are in an ideal position to spot signs of domestic abuse and report their concerns to managers who can activate safe procedures to investigate further.
