Removing a man who has used violence from the home can lead to homelessness. What happens when we support them instead?
By Bernadette McCartney, Executive Director, Services and Kristy Berryman, Manager Family Violence, Meli
At Meli, our family violence practitioners work with men who use violence and the families impacted by that violence every day. Increasingly, we are supporting men who, in addition to being referred to us for using violence, are also homeless. And that intersection—between violence and housing insecurity—is placing immense strain on both service systems and the people within them.
When a man is excluded from the family home due to a Family Violence Intervention Order (FVIO), the intention is twofold: protect the safety of women and children and hold accountable the person who has used violence. But too often, there is no plan for where that man will go. Follow-up by the justice system to ensure he has alternative accommodation is typically limited or non-existent.
The housing response(s) to support the conditions required for change are a critical piece of the accountability and safety puzzle. In some situations, our staff face an impossible task: holding men accountable for their use of violence when they are out of view of the service system.
One of our frontline workers recently described a case involving a man who became homeless and began sleeping rough near a river. “I can’t work with him down at the river,” the worker said. “It’s not safe for workers.”
That example is far from unique. When men are without stable housing, they’re far more likely to disengage from programs, breach court orders, and return to unsafe situations.
This is a significant problem. In Victoria, more than 40 per cent of individuals presenting to homelessness services cite domestic and family violence as a contributing factor. (1)
At Meli, we have observed a consistent and troubling overlap between family violence and homelessness among the men we support.
Men who use violence who are excluded from the family home or who are experiencing homelessness will often return to the family home—either because they have nowhere else to go, or because the affected family member, often a woman with children, will experience high levels of coercive control and pressure to allow him to return. He may well be the primary income provider and be adept in asserting the importance of his role within the family.
This complex interplay will work to undermine the intent of the legal and service responses designed to protect victim survivors. One of our practitioners has shared experiences whereby women will send coded messages to workers to indicate a return to the home by a man who uses violence and an alert not to call her as it was no longer safe to talk.
The current legislative framework prioritises the removal of men from homes where they’ve used violence. However, there are many barriers and systemic gaps that truly do not allow for this practice to be wholly supported. In reality, the onus still largely falls on women and children to leave to maintain safety.
This is a major point of frustration for frontline workers. They want to shift that narrative—away from reactive crisis responses and towards a proactive system that allows women and children to remain safely in their homes while the perpetrator is supported elsewhere to take responsibility for their actions.
The newly launched trial of Safe at Home, led by McAuley Services for Women, in partnership with Meli, is expected to demonstrate an innovative response to this issue. The co-designed model will intervene early and support women and children to remain in the home, if it is safe to do so. The model will provide support to the man to address his use of violence and to locate emergency accommodation.
Whilst this model holds great potential, the lack of adequate, safe, and accessible housing for men who use violence remains a significant gap in achieving safety for women and children.
Emergency accommodation in Victoria is stretched thin. According to recent data from the Productivity Commission, Victoria has the lowest per capita investment in social housing in the nation. (2) Meanwhile, waiting times for public housing have soared, with people assessed as a high priority waiting an average of almost 20 months. (3)
Many accommodation providers in regional areas, such as caravan parks, are now prohibitively expensive or fully booked—especially during peak times like public holidays and long weekends. From our experience, single men with no dependent children fall low on housing waitlists and are struggling to meet eligibility thresholds for immediate support.
Our practitioners are routinely providing tents, swags, or sleeping bags as a last resort in the absence of suitable accommodation options. This is not a housing strategy.
Meli’s experience is that when a man is safely housed, everything shifts. Engagement becomes possible. Responsibility becomes more likely. And critically, safety planning becomes more robust—not just for the man, but for the woman and children he was removed from.
Another practitioner put it simply: “You can’t keep women and children safe without supporting the man. A lot of the men are asking for help—once they’re engaged, they’re happy to get that help. What they really need, which is the basic need, is housing.”
This is consistent with academic findings. A Monash University study found housing stability significantly improved men’s engagement in family violence behaviour change programs. (4) Without stable housing, attendance and completion rates drop, and reoffending risks increase.
Other states and territories are already piloting integrated models. Breathing Space in Western Australia and Room4Change in the ACT both offer time-limited accommodation linked with behaviour change programs. (5) These services create a circuit-breaker: a safe, stable space for men to address their use of violence without forcing women and children out of their homes.
Victoria is well positioned to build on these models. We have the workforce capability. We have strong peak bodies in both sectors—No to Violence and the Council to Homeless Persons—that could jointly lead this work in collaboration with specialist men’s and homelessness services.
Relying on women to carry the burden of safety is no longer an acceptable or viable service intervention. We cannot keep asking practitioners to deliver trauma-informed, accountability-driven support in a car park or by a riverbank. And we cannot keep pretending that a tent and a sleeping bag are suitable housing responses for men removed under legal orders.
Homelessness doesn’t cause men to use violence, and it does not cancel out accountability. But, as a contributing factor, its impact is substantial, and it creates significant tension for men’s services to deliver a strong accountability response. Victoria has led the country on family violence reform. By building an integrated model of safe, secure and available housing, and a system that supports everyone affected by violence, including the men who use violence, we hold the potential to impact rates of homelessness that occur as a direct result of family violence.
This article first appeared in Parity magazine’s July 2025 edition, ‘Shifting the Burden: Rethinking family violence and homelessness responses’. Read more about Parity here.