Between domestic violence and housing vulnerability: reconfiguring the work of legal professionals in a housing rights association

Based on an ethnographic study of a housing rights association in Paris, this article examines the dual oversight in public housing policy regarding victims of domestic violence: the specific challenges of escaping violence coupled with the experience of poor housing. By observing the practices of the association’s legal experts, it reveals the pitfalls of public action, which is supposed to guarantee priority access to social housing for victims but instead exposes them to increased risks. In a context of social housing shortages, women victims of violence face untenable institutional expectations and discrimination, particularly targeting foreign and economically insecure women. Confronted with these obstacles, legal experts are readjusting their approach to reaffirm victims’right to housing, but they themselves face precariousness and isolation from structures specializing in combating violence against women.