Hendricks said they would check availability at other refuges, but many were experiencing high demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not going to be unusual,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is going to be particularly usual and commonplace over the December period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a really good arrangement with the hotels and motels, and so that helps us. We try and keep that to a minimum, because we have to carry the cost of that as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve noticed is a steady increase in the numbers of people accessing the refuge, which is a bit concerning, but we do also have a spike, particularly around Christmas time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last year or so, things have been exacerbated with the cost-of-living pressures, with the high unemployment rates, the job insecurity, there\u2019s been more redundancies, the cost of living, the food banks [demand] has gone up as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these things go hand in hand, because you\u2019ll find that domestic violence is linked in with financial pressures, is linked in with mental health, is linked in with food insecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said donations paid for the refuge and it would like the government to fund more refuge beds.<\/p>\n
Hendricks said policy settings, such as the tightening of access to emergency housing, had impacted people needing their services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s commonsense that other parts of the system are going to have huge demand and their numbers are going to start to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shine Refuges said one woman wanted to share her experience to help with the service\u2019s Christmas appeal.<\/p>\n
Hannah (not her real name) said few people knew about the violence she and her children endured, but she hoped to encourage anyone in similar situations to seek help.<\/p>\n
She said her now ex-husband\u2019s violence escalated over years, from breaking the furniture to other forms of control.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we got married, [he] would be so kind, carrying things for me, cooking for me\u2026 but even then, he could suddenly become violent – breaking the furniture and smashing my phone,\u201d she said. \u201cAfterwards, he\u2019d persuade me it wouldn\u2019t happen again\u2026 and I would believe him.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gradually controlled every aspect of her life, isolating her from her friends and family to the point, she and her children had to ask permission to use the toilet.<\/p>\n
Hannah said the turningpoint came one night, when he began strangling her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that I was going to die,\u201d she said. \u201cMy baby daughter was right there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he just stopped and said, \u2018I nearly killed you\u2019. At that moment, in my heart, I knew this had to stop, if not for me, for my children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI waited until he was asleep, went into my son\u2019s room and told him to pack his things, that we were going. I packed my baby daughter\u2019s things and called 111.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hannah said the police took them to a refuge and she was able to get back on her feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cShine was amazing. My advocate arranged counselling for the children and I, a bank account, a car to get my son to school, a lawyer, clothing, food and later housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have nothing, that means the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
– RNZ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hendricks said they would check availability at other refuges, but many were experiencing high demand. \u201cThis is not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[806,51,9218,18399,4190,2109,2070,42,43,111007,21938,40,38,41,39,13118,13971],"class_list":{"0":"post-171793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-auckland","10":"tag-before","11":"tag-christmas","12":"tag-demand","13":"tag-family","14":"tag-full","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-refuge","18":"tag-surges","19":"tag-top-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topnews","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-violence","24":"tag-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}