Gabriela Sandoval Requena
Director of Policy and Communications
March 5, 2025

Thank you, NYC Council Finance Committee Chair Brannan, Committee Members, and Council Central Staff for the opportunity to submit written testimony on the preliminary budget for Fiscal Year 2026.

 

ABOUT NEW DESTINY

Founded in 1994, New Destiny’s mission is to end the cycle of domestic violence and homelessness for low-income families and individuals by developing and connecting them to safe, permanent, affordable housing and services.

New Destiny is the only organization in New York City solely dedicated to the solution of permanent housing for survivors of domestic violence. We are the largest provider of supportive housing for survivors in New York and a leading advocate in the effort to increase housing resources for New Yorkers impacted by domestic violence.

We are also a co-convener of the Family Homelessness Coalition (FHC), a collective of mothers with lived experience of homelessness and organizations committed to tackling housing insecurity among families in our city. New Destiny is also a member of the Supportive Housing Network of New York and the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development.

 

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND HOMELESSNESS

Domestic violence and homelessness are fundamentally connected. As New Destiny documented in its report: A Crisis Compounded: The Dual Crises of Domestic Violence and Homelessness, domestic violence is the leading cause of family homelessness in New York City, pushing more families into shelter than evictions.

Due to the lack of permanent housing options, which are compounded by the devastating long-lasting effects of abuse, survivors may linger in shelter for years. Less than 10% of survivors moved to a permanent home and more than half left Human Resources Administration domestic violence emergency shelter for another shelter, upon reaching the State-mandated limit of 180 days. One in four survivors and their children had to move to a Department of Homeless Services family shelter, where the average length of stay is over a year, according to the Fiscal Year 2025 Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report.

With no certainty of when they might be able to find a safe home, survivors are forced to make the impossible choice between entering the shelter system or remaining in abusive situations, putting their lives at risk. In 2023, 1 out of every 5 homicides were domestic violence homicides in New York City (73 of 386), where the victim was either an intimate partner or a family member.

 

FEDERAL FUNDING CUTS

The proposed federal budget cuts will be devastating for survivors. Specifically, the cuts to programs funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Since 2018, New Destiny has received HUD funding through the New York City Continuum of Care (CoC) to provide housing navigation services to hundreds of survivors and, in many cases, also temporary rental assistance. But our program, and hundreds of others like it in New York City, are at risk of disappearing.

As of today, HUD is withholding over $3.57 billion in CoC funding nationwide, including nearly $174 million for New York City. This year, more than ever, we need our city leaders to step up and protect New Yorkers impacted by domestic violence by:

 

Expanding CityFHEPS eligibility to include survivors fleeing abuse, regardless of immigration status 

A shelter stay is often required to qualify for rental assistance programs, which effectively excludes survivors who are fleeing abuse and have never spent time in shelter. As it is the case for countless survivors without children, who are often members of the LGBTQIA+ community, trafficking survivors, and older adults, and often unable to access domestic violence emergency shelter. Expanding all voucher program eligibility to include survivors who are escaping an abusive situation and regardless of family size, as the federal Emergency Housing Voucher program did, is vital.

We thank the Council for their leadership in passing the CityFHEPS legislative package in 2023, which scaled up the rental assistance program to include households at risk of eviction or experiencing homelessness, among other key enhancements. Such modification would expand access to CityFHEPS for survivors who are fleeing domestic violence.

However, Mayor Adams refuses to implement the bills, and the case continues to be litigated in court. The Adams administration must fully enact the CityFHEPS legislative package to ensure survivors fleeing abuse. For noncitizen New Yorkers or those in mixed-status households, where at least one member of the family is a U.S. citizen or eligible immigrant, it can be difficult – if not impossible – to access sufficient housing support. This includes countless immigrant survivors of domestic violence, who lack equitable access to housing resources and, as a result, tend to stay in shelter for longer.

 

Expediting NYCHA emergency transfers for domestic violence survivors

Under the Emergency Transfer Program, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) allows tenants who are escaping domestic abuse, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, as well as other crime victims, to apply for an apartment transfer. The process is intended to protect at-risk public housing residents by providing them with confidential relocation quickly. Eligible tenants are placed on a waiting list and assigned a transfer priority status. The total number of residents approved for an emergency transfer dropped from 1,552 in Fiscal Year 2023 to 1,207 in Fiscal Year 2024. Since the City does not report the number of applications submitted, the drop in approved transfers does not necessarily indicate a decrease in demand.

At a City Council Committee on Public Housing hearing in March 2023, NYCHA testified that the agency had a total of 2,330 emergency transfers pending, of which 76%, or more than 1,770, were related to domestic violence. They reported that crime victims requesting emergency transfers must wait for a significant period of time for a new home. The agency has struggled to accommodate emergency transfers for years. According to a City Limits investigation, in July 2017, one of the 256 families on NYCHA’s emergency transfer waiting list had been waiting since March 2012 to move. The prolonged wait for a transfer forces survivors to choose between remaining in unsafe situations or entering the shelter system.

As Legal Services NYC’s eye-opening report: Trapped in Danger, exposed, NYCHA places emergency transfers in its lowest priority category, which results in domestic violence survivors waiting anywhere from one to three years, or more, for an emergency transfer. New York City must adhere to federal VAWA regulations and address the significant delays in NYCHA emergency transfers that put survivors’ lives in jeopardy. NYCHA must give emergency transfer requests a much higher priority. This is a budget neutral, administrative change.

Additionally, NYCHA must ensure timely completion of repairs of vacant units and assess alternative resources, such as Section 8, for pending transfers waiting over 12 months, who are willing to relocate outside of public housing.

 

Investing $6 Million in ENDGBV’s microgrant program

Nearly all survivors face economic abuse, and more than half endure coerced debt, with long-lasting detrimental effects. An immediate, but otherwise manageable financial or health crisis can quickly snowball into a catastrophe causing homelessness for survivors.

In 2022, New York City took a major step in homelessness prevention by creating a housing stability program for domestic violence survivors, also known as microgrants. The program provides low-barrier grants to survivors and connects them to supportive services, with the goal of helping them maintain housing.

During COVID, a privately funded microgrant pilot, overseen by the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence and administered by Sanctuary for Families, demonstrated that flexible funding can significantly improve survivors’ financial situation, help them remain housed, and foster financial stability. The pilot illustrated the high demand for low-barrier financial support among survivors of domestic violence in New York City. The $500,000 for the pilot was quickly depleted and forced the program to cease receiving applications in less than 2 months.

Based on existing, but limited, federal service funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, it is estimated that the average microgrant amount requested will be about $2,000. Considering that and annual domestic violence service data from the New York City Family Justice Centers, the city must increase funding for the program to at least $6 million.

 

Investing in NYC 15/15 reallocation

Supportive housing is one of the safest and most cost-effective housing solutions for survivors of domestic violence. Abuse has long-lasting detrimental effects on the physical and psychological well-being of survivors.

Survivors are 31% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 51% are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to those who have not been impacted by domestic violence. At least half of survivors experience posttraumatic stress disorder and depression; moreover, survivors can sustain head trauma more often than football players, but they are rarely diagnosed. In fact, research shows that almost 75% of domestic violence incidents involve brain injury, and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) now recognize intimate partner violence as a leading cause of traumatic brain injury.

After years of advocacy from New Destiny and other organizations, last summer the Adams administration included domestic violence survivors as an eligible population for New York City 15/15, the latest city-funded supportive housing program. However, 100% of NYC 15/15 congregate units have already been allocated, which means that organizations like New Destiny cannot develop supportive housing for domestic violence survivors under this program. As the Supportive Housing Network of NY recommends, we urge the city reallocate a portion of the remaining scattered site units to congregate.

Thank you for your leadership and the opportunity to submit written testimony.