Refuge was commissioned by Warwickshire County Council  to deliver a new pilot dispersed accommodation programme. Comprising 36 properties, this new dispersed accommodation is providing safe, emergency accommodation and support to victim-survivors of domestic abuse in the county. In addition, this has also allowed the team to better understand best practices for a dispersed model.

The properties are a mix of dispersed flats and small family homes. Funding from Women in Safe Homes fund allowed for the purchase of nineteen of these properties.

Before being commissioned, the team at Refuge monitored accommodation commissioning trends from Local Authorities who are increasingly commissioning services that include dispersed accommodation across a geographical area.

This was around the same time as conversations between the Women in Safe Homes fund and Refuge’s need for a new refuge in London which led to an opportunity for Refuge to widen its partnership with the fund.

Why dispersed, self-contained accommodation?

Refuges provide safe and emergency accommodation for shared spaces for women and younger children. Generally, women will use this accommodation type as a short-term place to initially start their recovery before they move on into longer-term and permanent housing.

Dispersed accommodation, however, meets the needs of a wider group of survivors and provides an opportunity for longer–term, settled housing. This includes:

• Disabled people

• Larger families

• Families with older teenage boys

• Trans-identifying survivors

• Those with pets

• Survivors with multiple disadvantage

The dispersed accommodation staff team provide victim-survivors with the same level of support as woman in their refuges.

The property fund model

The fund is working with Refuge to purchase the nineteen properties as per Refuge’s property criteria and specifications:

• Small clusters of one-, two- and three-bedroom homes across the five Warwickshire districts and boroughs

• At least one adapted and accessible property in each district and borough

• Dedicated space in each cluster as a support hub and space for staff to base themselves

• Tenure governed by licence agreements

• In local community settings, so close to amenities, services, schools and public transport

• Discreet but effective security

• Fully furnished and homely to help provide a trauma-informed environment that can help  victim-survivors re-build their lives

Longer-term learnings from this model

Refuge is monitoring this project closely, with an evaluation after year 1 and a plan to share wider learning of the dispersed accommodation model. This will include:

• Knowing what is a good practice model for the delivery of commissioning safe accommodation

• Procurement and set up of trauma informed, safe homes for victim-survivors

• Illustrating the real cost of setting up safe accommodation services

• Supporting other specialist domestic abuse services to source property in future projects

One of the biggest challenges Refuge had faced was around sourcing the additional properties in Warwickshire. Leasing through the fund has been critical to meeting their need for the majority of properties needing to be sourced, helping to create a successful first year for the project.

Amy Davies, Project Manager at Refuge, “It’s been an incredible journey for us, around being able to have quite a bit of say as to what those properties look like, where they’re going to be, making the Women in Safe Homes fund ideal for our project.”

So far:

• Sixteen dispersed properties have been purchased for Refuge
• Twelve have been handed over to the charity, and,
• Ten have already provided safe and stable housing for twenty women and thirty-one children

About the Women in Safe Homes fund

The Women in Safe Homes fund is a gender-lens impact investment property fund helping address the housing crisis for women escaping domestic abuse, leaving the criminal justice system without a home to go to and at risk of or experiencing homelessness. It was launched in December 2020 as a joint venture of Resonance and Patron Capital because there is a chronic shortage of safe, decent and affordable housing for women at risk of and experiencing homelessness.  

In 2024, 1.6 million women in the UK experienced domestic abuse, one of the leading causes of women’s homelessness (ONS).  

The fund raised £29m from over twenty impact investors and has now closed, focusing on deployment, and has so far purchased 78 properties for its nine housing partners. So far, over 350 women and children have been housed by the fund.

About Refuge

Refuge supports thousands of survivors on any given day, and every two minutes someone looks to Refuge for help. Refuge runs the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, which is the gateway to accessing specialist support across the country. More than one in four women in England and Wales experiences domestic abuse at some point in their lifetime, and on average every five days a woman is killed by a current or former partner. 

Please signpost to Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247, available 24 hours a day 7 days a week for free, confidential specialist support. Or visit www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk to fill in a webform and request a safe time to be contacted or to access live chat (live chat available 10am-10pm, Monday to Friday). For support with tech abuse visit refugetechsafety.org.