Making the Break

Abstract

Mary Brailey's paper reports on research into the rehousing of women after marital breakdown in four local authority areas in Scotland. The four areas represented a range of allocation and homelessness policies. The paper identifies the underlying assumptions of rehousing policies in cases of marital breakdown. One such assumption is that people fabricate stories of breakdown, manipulating the housing system in order to secure a house, move to a better house or evade rent arrears. The research uncovered no evidence of such abuse; most women did not have a sufficiently sophisticated knowledge of the housing system to manipulate it in the manner suggested. Another assumption is that marital breakdown is a ‘bad thing’ and that reconciliation is to be preferred. This leads to procedures designed to give the parties time for reconsideration, minimum separation periods being stipulated by some authorities.

In the four areas studied the proportion of battered women whose applications for rehousing were successful varied from 19 per cent to 52 per cent; they were usually denied access to the better housing. The author argues that if the underlying assumptions were changed, there would be scope for effective change within the existing framework of law and local government operations.