Homelessness, Touch, Caring
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2020
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fear of becoming homeless is one of the factors that stops women leaving an abusive relationship. That’s according to the charity Women’s Aid which carried out research before covid, and collected evidence of women sofa-surfing, staying with friends or having difficulty getting a place in a refuge if they did leave. But now we're in lockdown have things got better or worse?
In our latest Corona Diary we speak to ex-pat, Carol. She lives in Australia but was planning to move her whole family back to the UK. She wants to be closer to her elderly parents, but the complications of coronavirus have put a spanner in the works.
Lockdown may be lifting at different rates around the UK, but for some people it still may be a long time before they see others from different households and what's more. touch them. Henrietta Harrison speaks to three women about missing touch, and how they're getting around it.
Penny Wincer has written about caring. In her new book called Tender, she combines her own experiences as a carer with the experiences of others. She offers hints, guidance and support.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts |
| 0:04.9 | Hello, Jenny Murray, welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday, 10th June. |
| 0:11.9 | Good morning. We're all likely at some point to face the prospect of caring for someone |
| 0:17.9 | we love, a parent, a child, a partner, or maybe a sibling. Why does Penny Wincer, who's |
| 0:24.1 | cared for her mother and her son, who has autism, call her book, Tender, the imperfect |
| 0:31.3 | art of caring. Each time I see my son at a safe distance, I long to give him a hug, but |
| 0:39.1 | dent. How are we all coping without that important part of our lives, touch? And the next |
| 0:46.2 | in our series of women's hour coronadiries, Carol is in Australia with her husband and |
| 0:50.7 | children, but is desperate to come home to her elderly parents. How will she manage it? |
| 0:58.4 | Now we've known for a long time that it can be terribly difficult for a woman suffering |
| 1:02.2 | domestic violence to find a place in a refuge where she and her children might feel safe. |
| 1:08.5 | It's often been asked why women who are in danger in their homes don't just leave, but |
| 1:13.6 | the charity Women's Aid has found the fear of becoming homeless is one of the reasons |
| 1:18.7 | why women don't walk away from an abusive relationship. The research was carried out |
| 1:24.0 | before lockdown began and there was evidence of women's sofa surfing, staying with friends |
| 1:29.4 | or having difficulty finding a place in a refuge if they did, escape the violence. |
| 1:34.8 | Well, what's the position now we're still in the midst of the crisis? I'm joined by Abby |
| 1:41.0 | Blake and by Lucy Hadley, who's Women's Aid's policy and campaigns manager. Lucy, how severe |
| 1:49.2 | was the fear of homelessness that you found in your research? Thank you. We are launching |
| 1:56.2 | two reports today which show us very clearly, I think, that fears of homelessness are a massive |
| 2:01.0 | barrier to women leaving an abuser and that unsafe housing will often be the price that |
| 2:06.4 | they actually pay for taking that step in and leaving. One woman told us that if you leave |
... |
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