Gabriela Sandoval Requena
Director of Policy and Communications
March 25, 2025

Thank you, New York City Council Committee on Housing and Buildings Chair Sanchez, Council 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 budget and staffing reductions to 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 under threat.

Additionally, HUD announced that funding for the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program will stop at the end of this year. Close to 8,000 New Yorkers depend on this vital housing resource, including hundreds of domestic violence survivors.

This year, more than ever, we need our city leaders to step up and protect New Yorkers impacted by domestic violence by:

INVESTING IN THE 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.

Supportive housing provides survivors with a home they can afford and the support they need to heal and thrive. After years of tireless advocacy from New Destiny and partner organizations, in August 2024, the Adams administration included domestic violence survivors as an eligible population for New York City 15/15, the latest city-funded supportive housing program.

The New York City Human Resource Administration is the lead procurement agency for NYC 15/15, and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene manages the contracts. As of 2024, 100% of NYC 15/15 congregate units had already been allocated, which means that organizations like New Destiny cannot develop supportive housing for domestic violence survivors under this critical program.

As the Supportive Housing Network of NY recommends, we urge the city reallocate a portion of the remaining scattered site units to congregate.

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.

Thank you for your leadership and the opportunity to submit written testimony. We are happy to answer your questions.