“Should I Have Just Stayed?” Improving Family Law Remedies for Survivors During BC’s Housing Crisis
Author: Haley Hrymak
“Yeah, it’s very disheartening and it makes you want to give up. I question all the time: Should I have just stayed?”
— Focus group participant K2, October 12, 2024
Rise Women’s Legal Centre’s (Rise) report, “Should I Have Just Stayed?” Improving Family Law Remedies for Survivors During BC’s Housing Crisis, shows the dangerous effects of BC’s housing crisis on women and gender diverse people. The first in-depth study of its kind, the report shows that, though the housing crisis in BC is affecting everyone, it can be life-threatening to survivors of family violence navigating family law processes.
This research was conducted between 2024 and 2025 and was made possible thanks to funding from The Houssian Foundation.
Family law remedies addressed in the report are focused on making changes to:
child and spousal support, including implementing a guaranteed child support system
property division, including access to interest-free secured loans for survivors with property entitlement directly after separation
interim distribution of property, including expanding Legal Aid BC’s services to cover representation for this issue
protection orders, including calling on the Ministry of the Attorney General of BC to adopt a specialized and collaborative approach to protection orders
safer parenting orders, including mandatory education on family violence screening and safety planning for lawyers
relocation, including the amendment of the Family Law Act to take into consider gender-related factors in relocation applications.
“I think about the survivors in this project who told me how they wanted to leave years before they did, the ones who had to return to their abuser after they left, and the ones who have now left and are still thinking of going back. It was important to me that the title include the quote from Survivor K2 "should I have just stayed?" because it was profound how many survivors shared this sentiment with me. When I wrote this report I was constantly asking myself, what would it look like if these women had better access to a family law system that worked for them?”
— Haley Hrymak