An exploration of safe and acceptable housing for racialized women who have experienced intimate partner violence within the housing crisis in Vancouver

In the era of The Highway of Tears, the Missing and Murdered Girls and Women in the Downtown Eastside, stories like Tina Fontaine, and the #MeToo Movement, this research explores the personal political stories of racialized women who have experienced intimate partner violence within the housing crisis in Vancouver. To capture racialized women’s voices of resilience, pain, growth, trauma, and over coming, this research uses Feminist Participatory Action and Photovoice methods. The purpose of this method was to illuminate authentic, and on the ground knowledge. The findings from their narratives and courage that arose were conditions of unsafe and unacceptable housing after changing living situations, how the impact of violence affected their health, and how resilience and self-actualization grew from adversity. These findings and discussion with the participants concluded that policies that address these issues need to include action towards the perpetrators. Policies need to call out and make men accountable. Policies need to empower racialized women with just wages and employment, increased stock of safe and acceptable housing, and appropriate treatment and resources for racialized women who have been abused.