Maritza Rico
Advocacy & Policy Manager
December 2, 2025

Good afternoon, my name is Maritza Rico, and I am the Policy and Advocacy Manager at New Destiny Housing. I would like to thank the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (OPDV) for updating the 1998 Model Domestic Violence Policy for Counties and inviting domestic violence service providers and other experts to provide feedback to advance this document into the 21st century.

I am here today because domestic violence is the leading cause of family homelessness in New York City, and for over 30 years New Destiny has been leading the charge to help survivors find housing and long-term safety to break the intergenerational cycle of abuse and homelessness. We are the only organization in New York that is solely focused on permanent housing solutions for survivors. New Destiny is the largest provider of supportive housing for New Yorkers impacted by domestic violence across the state, and we operate the biggest and longest-running rapid rehousing program for survivors in New York City.

Access to safe and affordable housing is one of survivors’ biggest, most urgent concerns and often determines whether a person leaves their abuser and stays alive. Without housing, it is impossible for survivors to address the long-lasting physical and mental health consequences of abuse.

With so little affordable housing available to homeless domestic violence survivors, survivors are more likely to move from shelter to shelter instead of housing. Between 2018 and 2024, more than half of survivors left HRA domestic violence emergency shelter for another shelter upon reaching the State-mandated 180-day limit. Of the 2,446 survivor-led households who exited emergency domestic violence shelter in 2024, only 9%, or 225 households, moved to a permanent home.

The 1998 Model for Domestic Violence Policy for Counties, while outdated in significant ways, provides an excellent opportunity for New York State to coordinate resources in service of survivors. Its “guiding principles” lay the groundwork for critical interventions in service provision for survivors as they navigate the state and local criminal justice, legal, and judicial systems, as well as healthcare, welfare, and education systems.

Generally, New Destiny believes that the model should use a survivor-centered approach in its language and design and separate “abuser accountability, ” and its related activities, from the framework of domestic violence service provision. We also recommend that the document refrain from generalizing based on gender and encourage OPDV to use data to guide the updates and make precise statements about the demographics of those who are most affected by domestic violence—while not erasing the experiences of those in the minority.

New Destiny highly recommends the inclusion of housing among the core systems in the provision of services for domestic violence survivors. As I’ve spoken to today, affordable and safe housing is a critical component in the long-term stability and overall health of survivors. As of this fall, New Destiny houses close to 1,500 adults and children in our supportive housing buildings, 99.8% of which have remained violence-free.

Our Housing Access and Stability Services Program (HASS) which operates out of the five New York City Family Justice Centers, provides navigation help, temporary rental assistance, and supportive services to promote long-term stability for survivors. So far this fiscal year, we have served over 1,100 clients through HASS. Last year, 98.7% of HASS households remained stably housed, and 95.1% were violence free.

Finding housing is extremely challenging for survivors, especially in New York City, where the housing vacancy rate has fallen below 1.4%. Now more than ever, the State needs to prioritize systems coordination to ensure that survivors are finding safe homes, fast.

This new iteration of the Manual must outline housing coordination between county and state social service agencies, shelter providers, affordable housing developers, supportive housing operators, domestic violence service providers, and all other entities involved in domestic violence response across the state. Linkages between these often-siloed systems need to be assessed and revised to expedite the process, so that survivors can leave their abuser without having to undergo a traumatic and prolonged shelter stay or get stuck in affordable housing limbo for years.

As experts in housing solutions for survivors, New Destiny looks forward to partnering with OPDV in designing a framework that considers the many players and intricate arrangements in place to house survivors. We can do so much better as a city and a state to make these systems more responsive to the lived experiences of survivors. It is not acceptable, for instance, that in New York City many survivors are left out of housing and homelessness plans and therefore administrative planning, systems, and service models, simply because they have a separate shelter system; or that the city leave single survivors out of accessing city-funded supportive housing resources. It is also not acceptable that the state’s investments into permanent housing solutions that help survivors are made in a patchwork of ways, that leave legacy systems funded at sub-optimal rates and draw lines in quality and service provision between programs.

To improve any of these systems, there needs to be a wide-reaching assessment of the issues and ways our current system functions or disfunctions. We remain committed partners to OPDV and all state and city agencies in keeping our systems survivor-centered and trauma-informed, as well as ensuring that we effectively address all aspects of survivors’ needs, including housing.

Thank you.