When fleeing a violent home, women and children need access to a secure place to sleep, financial support, and legal protection — and they need it quickly.
In Tasmania, surging demand means those needing help are waiting months to receive it, and it's driving some people onto the streets, or back to their abuser.
In desperate search of a safe space, 1,182 women and children called the Hobart Women's Shelter last financial year — 943 of them were turned away.
In the financial year to the end of February, 701 women and children have so far called in need of help.
The centre has only been able to accommodate 161 of them.
"Eight out of 10 women and children, we're turning away," Hobart Women's Shelter CEO Janet Saunders said.
"We're hearing stories from women that are in unsafe situations, women that are sleeping in cars or couch surfing ... and some of those women are sleeping on the streets and they have nowhere to go.
"We have to say to those women that we're full. We just cannot keep up for demand for crisis accommodation."
The Women's Shelter isn't the only option for those seeking help, and staff do all they can to help people find somewhere safe to sleep for the night, but it's hard, and getting harder.
"One of the biggest reasons why we're full is because there aren't any options for people to leave the shelter," Ms Saunders said.
"Historically, crisis accommodation has been around six weeks ... we've had families here for six months.
"It's very rare for people to get private rentals, the majority will have to register for social housing, and we know the wait times for social housing register wait times has blown out to two years."
Support expiring before people have the chance to apply
Those who do manage to find a place to live often do so with little or no money, and suddenly have a deposit, utilities, furniture and kids' clothing to pay for.
To help, the federal government now offers $5,000 worth of financial assistance to cover these costs. To access this money, a person must apply within 12 weeks of leaving a violent home.
However, knowing that this money is available in the first place, and being able to navigate the application process can require speaking with a counsellor, access to which in Tasmania can be so difficult that time limit often expires before they've had the chance to apply.
"[In Tasmania] you're waiting four to six months to see a counsellor to help you apply to access that, so by default you've missed out on that window," said family violence victim-survivor Irene (not her real name).
"Three months is a very small time period, and literally in that time you're in crisis mode trying to work out how to keep yourself safe."
If a shelter or support payment isn't available, Irene has experienced what happens next.
"I ended up living on the streets," she said.
"Because there were no other choices, I actually moved back in with my mum and my childhood family violence perpetrator.
"I didn't have any support to find housing, so I ended up living in a unit that wasn't safe. A block of units with all men."
The Tasmanian government offers a similar support payment, called a Flexible Support Package, designed to cover necessities like food and medications.
For that funding, you have 12 months to apply after leaving a violent home. But delays are now so severe, even a year isn't long enough for many people.
"When we're seeing wait times blow out for services, we're losing opportunities to be able to support people to be able to access those funds that have been allocated for that exact purpose," said Alina Thomas from Engender Equality.
Ms Thomas said another "amazing service", offering victim-survivors and their children free dental care on behalf of the Australian Dental Foundation, was rarely taken up for the same reason — there isn't the specialist support services available to navigate people to the program.
"The community-based family violence response in Tasmania is really in crisis trying to meet the demand in the community," she said.
"So much of the system is reliant on the specialist services, and yet the specialist services are under so much pressure to be available when people need us and respond in a timely way, and unless we receive additional funding it's not tenable."
In a statement, minister for prevention of family violence Jo Palmer did not respond directly to whether the time frame to apply for the Flexible Support Package would be extended.
She said eligibility criteria was set out for each support program "to ensure funding and support payments are targeted to the needs of those experiencing family and sexual violence."
Legal service also turning people away
Another crucial part of feeling safe is having legal protection, but the Women's Legal Service Tasmania is having to make the same agonising decisions as the shelters.
"We turn people away too, every day," CEO Yvette Cehtel said.
"Unfortunately, we do have to work out — which is a really difficult exercise — who we're able to assist and who we're not.
"Because we've all got our limits, and there's only so many people we can help at any one time."
As with the other services, Ms Cehtel and her team prioritise those who have nowhere else to go, and no ability to pay other legal professionals.
"It's really difficult for out team to tell people we can't act for them," she said.
"We're a service run for by women, for women, and we can't burn out the staff we have in an effort to help everybody. We just can't do it."
The service assists women to access things like family violence orders, which are designed to deter further acts of violence, and to be used by the courts to increase punishments for those who breach them.
"Breaching an order is taken very seriously by the courts; however, often what we hear form victim-survivors and our clients is that police don't always attend when there is a report of a breach," she said.
What is being done?
Housing minister Guy Barnett said the government was aware of the challenges women and children were facing and are funding six new units at McCombe House in Hobart, and 21 units for women aged 55 and over in Moonah — both to be managed by the Salvation Army.
The Hobart Women's Shelter is also expanding, building two new homes in Hobart, and another eight on land gifted to them by the Kingborough Council.
"We know that we aren't going to resolve all these issues, but we can't just sit here and see this continue," Ms Saunders said.
"We need to make sure women have safe and affordable homes that they can go into, and as a result freeing up crisis support services for those who are most vulnerable."
Longer-term, the state government has co-funded Shelter Tasmania to conduct research into the problem.
That report is due to come out in the coming months, and will inform the Tasmanian Housing Strategy — the government's 20-year plan to tackle the housing and homelessness problem.
In November last year, the federal government announced it would fund an additional 500 family violence workers across Australia.
Alina Thomas from Engender Equality said they expected to know "imminently" how many will be allocated to Tasmania.
But in the meantime, she doesn't want people to be put off asking for help.
"We want to encourage service-seeking," she said.
"If people call, we will get back to everyone. Even though it might not be us, we want to be able to pull in the support services and help people access counselling and immediate help."
