[3] The establishment of Jenny's Place was integral in the response to the recognised need for feminist housing and crisis services for women and children escaping domestic and family violence, part of the original New South Wales Refuge Movement.
[4] In 1977 a group of passionate women, including Marcia Chapman[5] and Josephine Conway,[3] established the refuge in a run down suburban cottage[5] in Islington.
[6] The women approached Joy Cummings, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle at the time and a progressive politician who supported social reform,[7][8] to obtain a building for a refuge.
The Jenny's Place website provides the following description of the original refuge building; An old, two-bedroom house in Newcastle region was retained, which the council charged a peppercorn rent of $1.00 per year.
[25] Today, Jenny's Place receives state government funding through the Specialist Homelessness Services and continues to provides support and crisis accommodation to women and children escaping domestic violence through two refuges,[26] and its outreach program which includes fifteen transitional properties and ten boarding houses.