Housing, Legal & Financial Help

You have the right to live in safety and to feel secure in your own home. You also have a right to information and advice from your local council to find out about your housing options and to stop you from becoming homeless. Please see the following link for more information from Scottish Women's Aid

If you have decided that you want to leave, staff at the Dundee Housing Options Service can give you practical help and advice.

The Housing Options Service is based at the East District Housing Office, 169 Pitkerro Road, Dundee DD4 8ES. Buses that pass near to the Office are the 15 and 17.

You can call the Homelessness Advice Line 0800 633 5843 or 01382 432001, 24 hours a day.

The Housing Options Service can:

• Provide you in safe secure temporary accommodation
• Give you advice about your housing options and your rights
• Refer you to Dundee Women’s Aid
• Help you to contact Housing Associations and private landlord

Information from Dundee City Council Housing Options Service

Action for Children Youth Housing:

Dundee Youth Housing Service provides supported accommodation to young people who are homeless. The service is provided to young people aged between 16 and 21 who require support to enable them to establish and maintain their own home.

In this project, support is focused on helping young people to develop the practical skills and emotional resilience to enable them to make a positive transition into living independently.

The aims of the service include:

• To provide housing support to young people aged 16 to 21 who are homeless or are likely to become homeless.
• To undertake assessments and identify the needs of young people to enable Dundee Youth Housing Service to provide support and respond to a range of diverse needs irrespective of ability.
• To work in partnership with a range of agencies to meet the housing needs of the young person.
• To provide a service that will meet the needs of young people from a diverse background.
• To provide a holistic package of support.

Dundee City Council is strengthening it's stand against domestic violence and has signed up to the Make a Stand pledge, which has been developed by the Chartered Institute of Housing in partnership with Women’s Aid and the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance. 

The pledge encourages housing organisations to support people experiencing domestic abuse. 

There are four parts to the Make a Stand pledge that the council are working towards. These are: 

• Appoint a champion at a senior level to own the activity we do to support people experiencing domestic abuse. 
• Put in place a Human Resources policy, or amend an existing policy, to support members of staff who may be experiencing domestic abuse.
• Make information about  national and local domestic abuse support services available on the council's  website and in other appropriate places so that they are easily accessible for residents and  staff. 
• Put in place and embed a policy to support residents who are affected by domestic abuse. 

Shelter can advise on how to tackle the housing and homelessness issues connected to domestic violence and abuse: how to find yourself somewhere new to live if you need to leave your home, what to do if you become homeless as a result of domestic abuse and how to exclude the abusive partner from your home. It also contains links to organisations and things such as domestic abuse helplines that can help you

In some cases you might not feel able to contact a specialist domestic abuse service or it may be easier to talk to an adviser at your local Citizens Advice Bureau first. This might be the case if you're already going to speak about your benefits or housing, for example. Citizens Advice Bureau advisers aren't specialists in domestic abuse but they can listen confidentially to you and:

• help you contact specialist support
• establish what you've already done and if you're in danger
• make sure you have a plan before you leave the bureau
• explain the longer term options you might have 

An adviser can help you with housing, debt and benefits issues to help you live independently from your abuser. They will recommend seeing a lawyer about more complex housing, immigration and legal issues. 

Information on your rights from the Chartered Institute of Housing deals specifically with those who have arrived to join a UK national or settled (with indefinite leave to remain) husband, cohabitee or civil partner, and can no longer stay in the relationship because of abuse.

The Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers (ALACHO), the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA), Shelter Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid have developed this guidance

Many women worry about whether they’ll have enough money to live on if they separate from their partner. It might be that he has controlled all of the household finances and you aren’t used to dealing with these, or you have been looking after children and not in paid work. Please see the following link for more information from Scottish Women's Aid

Citizens Advice Bureau advisers can help you with housing, debt and benefits issues to help you live independently from your abuser. They will recommend seeing a lawyer about more complex housing, immigration and legal issues.  

Local advice can be found at:

Dundee City Council Advice Services – Welfare Rights
Tel:                 01382 431188 (Adviceline Monday to Friday 9.30am – 4.30pm)
Email:             welfare.rights@dundeecity.gov.uk

Brooksbank Centre
Address:        Pitarlie Road, Dundee, DD4 8DB
Tel:                 01382 432450
Email:             bbpartnership@hotmail.co.uk

Dundee North Law Centre
Address:        101 Whitfield Dr, Dundee, Angus DD4 0DX
Tel:                 01382 307230

Crisis Grants can provide you with a safety net in the event of a disaster or emergency. Community Care Grants can help you to leave care and live on your own, or to continue living in your own home. Apply using the following link

The CONNECT team are part of Council Advice Services (CAS) and give assistance to anyone requiring help with income maximisation, Benefit form filling, benefit problems and budgeting

The Scottish Women’s Rights Centre help self-identifying women aged 16 and over affected by violence and abuse by providing free legal information and advice through our helpline, legal surgeries and ongoing casework.

Helpline 08088 010 789

Legal information

Monday 2 - 5 pm
Tuesday6 - 8 pm
Wednesday11 am - 2 pm
Friday10 am - 1 pm

Advocacy support

Tuesday 11 am - 2 pm

Sexual harassment
Thursday 5 - 8 pm

*On request, we can arrange language interpreters.

The Helpline is available to any woman in Scotland who has experienced or is experiencing gender based violence and is looking for information about their rights. More specific legal advice can be provided by a solicitor at a surgery.

It is free to call our helpline from most mobile phones and landlines. On request, we can arrange language interpreters.

The helpline can be extremely busy, please keep trying to get through. Read our legal guides before calling.

We offer a fortnightly surgeries in Dundee:

Tuesdays 11-2pm

Book an appointment: 0138 220 7099

Our Dundee surgery is located in:

Dundee Women's Aid
Top Floor, Enterprise House, 45 N Lindsay St
Dundee
DD1 1PW

We can offer you information on your rights and on what to expect if you are engaged in the civil or criminal justice processes.

A trained support worker will be on hand if you wish to speak with her about the impact of your experience, how you are coping or how to access further support.

Representation:

Sometimes we are also able to provide free legal representation in cases where there is unmet or complex legal need, for example where a woman cannot afford a solicitor but is not eligible for legal aid. We would always have to consider the circumstances of the particular case, and our capacity.

Professionals who support or advocate for women victims/survivors of gender based violence can also contact us through our helpline to obtain legal information.

Scottish Women's Aid also have information about legal issues

The Scottish Child Law Centre is one of only a few dedicated providers of free information on matters of law concerning children and young people in Scotland. We provide services throughout the whole of Scotland.

We provide free expert legal advice and information about children’s right and child law in Scotland through our telephone advice line and email.

We also provide a wide range of master classes and training on the law and children's rights to organisations and individuals across Scotland, and produce a range of publications on various legal issues. We also do visits to schools and young people's groups. 

You can contact us for free legal advice by phone, email or post. We will return all calls received, but we are not able not to reply to international phone numbers.

The scheme aims to prevent domestic abuse by empowering both men and women with the right to ask about the background of their partner, potential partner or someone who is in a relationship with someone they know, and there is a concern that the individual may be abusive.

The scheme aims to enable potential victims to make an informed choice on whether to continue the relationship, and provides further help and support to assist the potential victim when making that informed choice.