Grace: Place matters

Image sourced by the research team from Unsplash. Artist: Marianne Bos

[transcript]

[I] wouldn't want to be too far [away from family]...

The accommodation that I'm in now, I am literally two blocks away from my ex... And that's why I didn't go when they first offered it to me... But like... I ended up having to really think about it ... it was like, oh, yeah, I could move to [the offered accommodation]. It's good because it's got like, you know, the pin codes to get in the doors. [And there’s] staff there during the day, he's not going to just rock up and knock on my door at least. ...At first my brain was just like, ‘no, he's not only two blocks away. yeah, that you're not going to be able to, not tell him that you're there.’

...you can't ask them [perpetrators] to go away [relocate], but sometimes you can't always go away as well. And I mean, I can, I just, like for one, I know my mum would stress a lot with me not being close enough for her to be able to get to, if she needed... But the other thing I guess I should worry about too, moving far away is that like I know that I won't reach out to her as much when trouble happens because I don't want to worry her. And because it's such a far drive, it's like, well, what's the point in calling mum? Like, you know, by the time she gets there. And because I also don't drive myself, that's also probably just another part that makes it hard too, is that like, you know, I can't just get away from places when I need to or want to. [all emphases by the research team]