Gabriela Sandoval Requena
Director of Policy and Communications
March 11, 2024
Thank you, Chair Sanchez, members of the City Council Housing Committee, and Council staff for holding this hearing on the preliminary budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
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. We build and manage supportive housing, and, through our innovative programs, we assist survivors in finding permanent housing and remaining stably housed.
New Destiny is the only organization in New York City solely dedicated to the solution of permanent housing for survivors and a leading advocate in the effort to obtain the resources needed to house survivors. To learn more, please see our policy recommendations. New Destiny is also a co-convener of the Family Homelessness Coalition (FHC), a collective of mothers with lived experience of homelessness and organizations committed to tackling homelessness among families in our city, as well as members of the Supportive Housing Network of New York and the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND HOMELESSNESS
While only about half of all domestic violence instances are reported,[i] the NYPD still filed1 domestic violence incident report every 2 minutes in 2022.[ii] Access to safe and affordable housing is one of survivors’ biggest, most urgent concerns and it often determines whether they leave their abuser.
Domestic violence continues to be a main cause of family homelessness in New York City. More than 1 in 5 families with children who entered the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter system identified domestic violence as the reason for their homelessness in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023.[iii] [iv] Additionally, 10,640 survivors sought refuge in the separate Human Resources Administration (HRA) domestic violence shelter system in calendar year 2022, 96% of whom were families with kids.[v]
Once in domestic violence emergency shelter, survivors are 8 times more likely to move to DHS or another shelter than to a permanent home upon reaching the state-mandated six-month limit.[vi] Moving to DHS means that survivors lose the anonymity and specialized services of the domestic violence shelter system. Moreover, their time spent in domestic violence shelter does not count toward time in shelter in the DHS system, a marker used to prioritize households for housing. In 2022, more than 1 in 2 survivors left shelter for shelter and only 6% were able to secure permanent housing. Hundreds of other survivors were reported as making their own arrangements, unknown, or other. With a vacancy rate of only 1.4% in New York City,[vii] it is very likely that many of them left shelter to return to their abuser. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, survivors go back to their abusive partners an average of seven times before they leave for good.[viii]
Survivors sleeping in shelter make up only a fraction of survivors without a safe home to go. The New York City domestic violence hotline received 92,410 calls in 2022,[ix] and in 2023 more than 16,000 survivors made nearly 50,000 visits to the city’s Family Justice Centers.[x] While anyone can be affected by domestic violence, women of color, in particular Black and Hispanic, are disproportionally impacted. In 2022, 97% of head of households in HRA domestic violence shelter identified as female, 60% were Black, and 33% were Hispanic. Between 2010 and 2022, Black New Yorkers were 2.4 times more likely than members of other racial or ethnic groups to be victims of domestic violence homicide.[xi]
Most survivors need housing assistance because they cannot access whatever household resources existed. More than 94% of survivors of intimate partner violence experience financial abuse and isolation [xii] and over half are victims of nonconsensual, credit-related transactions.[xiii] As a result, survivors often have poor credit scores and rental history, or may have lost their rental subsidy due to violations committed by the abuser. The shortage of affordable housing only heightens the barriers for survivors as they strive to regain stability. In 2023, the net rental vacancy rate of homes renting under $2,400 fell below 1%.[xiv] Challenges are even greater for survivors from marginalized communities, survivors with a disability, and non-citizens survivors due to systemic discrimination and lack of equitable access to resources.[xv]
RECOMMENDATIONS
While the city has made strides in recent years toward bringing accountability to the various shelter systems, increasing rental subsidies, and developing more supportive and affordable housing, domestic violence survivors continue to be left out of life-saving housing, such as the city’s homeless set-aside apartments and city-funded supportive housing. This must change. Also, the city must implement and invest adequately in the newly created flexible funding microgrant program for survivors, which can prevent homelessness and shelter recidivism for a fraction of the cost of shelter and re-housing efforts.
As Outlined in the Housing our Neighbors Blueprint, Allow Survivors in HRA Domestic Violence Shelter to Access HPD Homeless Set-Asides. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) creates a critical pipeline from shelter to permanent housing for homeless New Yorkers by requiring most developers who receive public funding to set aside at least 15% of their apartments for individuals and families in shelter. These units are commonly referred to as HPD homeless set-asides. In FY 2023, HPD moved nearly 2,000 homeless households into newly constructed units and 548 into re-rental apartments.[xvi] However, only a handful of these homes were “volunteered” to survivors living in the HRA domestic violence shelter system. Currently, the administration formally allows only individuals and families in the DHS shelter system to access these units, despite committing “to even the playing field for all New Yorkers” in the Housing Our Neighbors Blueprint in April 2022. Expanding access to homeless set-asides would not only make this valuable housing resource more equitable, but would fill vacancies more quickly, and help survivors avoid having to enter DHS shelter when they time out of domestic violence shelter.
Open Up City-Funded Supportive Housing to Domestic Violence Survivors. Unlike New York State supportive housing programs, the city supportive housing initiative, NYC 15/15, does not include domestic violence survivors. NYC 15/15 requires families to meet the federal definition of “chronically homeless” to be eligible for supportive housing. There are two criteria: families must have a lengthy stay in DHS shelter—which doesn’t include the 180 days spent already in an HRA emergency domestic violence shelter—and have a diagnosed disability, such as serious mental illness or substance use disorder— which domestic violence survivors rarely divulge for fear of losing custody of their children to their abuser. In other words, survivors are effectively shut out of this important housing resource. At least half of survivors experience post-traumatic stress disorder and depression;[xvii] moreover, survivors can sustain head trauma more often than football players, but they are rarely diagnosed.[xviii] Permanent, supportive housing is a lifeline for domestic violence survivors who need housing and some level of support to attain and maintain stability.
Additionally, the city must improve NYC 15/15. Increase overall access to supportive housing by building more, and relying less on an already crowded housing market, to house New York’s most vulnerable residents. New Destiny supports the Supportive Housing Network of New York’s recommendations to improve NYC 15/15, especially the ask to develop additional congregate units above the original 7,500 allocation. NYC 15/15 is in its eighth year and falling below its target. The city has only awarded 17% of scattered site allocation, whereas 80% of congregate units have been awarded.
Ensure HPD and DOB have the resources they need to clear the backlog of affordable housing projects and develop and train new staff. New York City’s affordable housing and homeless crisis can only be addressed by increasing affordable housing supply. HPD and the Department of Buildings (DOB) play critical roles in expanding the city’s affordable housing stock. Compared to FY 2023, new construction has slowed down in FY 2024. In the first four months of FY 2024, the city started about a third of units that the agency started during the first four months of the previous year (134 compared to 381 units) and a tenth of the number of supportive housing units (25 compared to 250 units). Last year the Mayor instructed agencies to propose 15% cuts to their budgets, in three installments of 5% – November, Preliminary, and Executive Budgets, and imposed a citywide hiring freeze. The administration has since cancelled the final 5% and eased the hiring freeze, but it is essential that HPD is allowed to fully staff.
New Destiny would also like to thank the Council for their Domestic Violence Empowerment (DoVE) initiative discretionary funding support in past years and respectfully requests for renewed funding in FY 2025. Council Discretionary Funding enables New Destiny to cover operational costs and continue providing paramount services to families and individuals who have gone through the double trauma of homelessness and abuse.
[i] Morgan, R. & Truman, J. (2020). Criminal Victimization, 2019. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv19.pdf
[ii] NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence. (2022 October 2). New York City Announces its Annual Domestic Violence Awareness Month Campaign. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/ocdv/downloads/pdf/DVAM-Press-Release-2023-10-02.pdf
[iii] Silkowski, A. (2019). Housing Survivors: How New York City Can Increase Housing Stability for Survivors of Domestic Violence. New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. Retrieved from https://comptroller.nyc.gov/wp-content/uploads/documents/Housing_Survivors_102119.pdf
[iv] New York City Department of Social Services. (2023). Reasons for Eligibility for Families with Children for Department of Homeless Services Shelter (Asylum seekers was the largest category, accounting for 32%, while evictions, formal and informal, accounted for 11%).
[v] New York City Department of Social Services. (2023). 2022 Annual Report on Exits from NYC Domestic Violence Shelters.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. (2024). 2023 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey Selected Initial Findings. Retrieved from https://www.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/about/2023-nychvs-selected-initial-findings.pdf
[viii] National Domestic Violence Hotline. Supportive Someone Who Keeps Returning to an Abusive Relationship. Retrieved from: https://www.thehotline.org/resources/supporting-someone-who-keeps-returning-to-an-abusive-relationship/
[ix] New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. (2023). New York State domestic violence dashboard 2022. Retrieved from https://opdv.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2024/01/nys-gender-based-violence-dashboard-2022.pdf
[x] New York City Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence. (2024). 2023 Annual Report on Domestic Violence
Initiatives, Indicators and Factors. Retrieved from https://www.nyc.gov/assets/ocdv/downloads/pdf/Local-Law-38-2023-Annual-Report.pdf
[xi] New York City Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence. (2024). 2023 New York City Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee Annual Report. Retrieved from: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/ocdv/downloads/pdf/2023-Annual-FRC-Report.pdf
[xii] Postmus, J., Plummer S., Mcmahon, S., Murshid, N., & Kim, M. (2012). Understanding economic abuse in the lives of survivors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(3), 411-430.
[xiii] Bhattacharya, A., Dorosh-Walter, B., Reid, B., Sussman, E., Kourousias, L., Garcia Bigelow, M., Menna, M., Correa, M., Cameo., Young., Wee, S., & Inzunza, T. (2022). Reinvesting in Economic Justice, Equity, and Solidarity for Survivors in New York City. Retrieved from https://nycsurvivorej.mailchimpsites.com/
[xiv] New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. (2024). 2023 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey Selected Initial Findings. Retrieved from https://www.nyc.gov/assets/hpd/downloads/pdfs/about/2023-nychvs-selected-initial-findings.pdf
[xv] Kulkarni, S., & Hill, E. (2020). Understanding the Cycle of Housing Insecurity for Marginalized Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence. Retrieved from https://safehousingpartnerships.org/sites/default/files/2020-10/CoordinatedEntryPapersCycleofHousingInsecurity.pdf
[xvi] New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations. (2023). Mayor’s Management Report 2023. Retrieved from https://www.nyc.gov/site/operations/performance/mmr.page
[xvii] Nathanson, A. M., Shorey, R. C., Tirone, V., & Rhatigan, D. L. (2012). The Prevalence of Mental Health Disorders in a Community Sample of Female Victims of Intimate Partner Violence. Partner abuse, 3(1), 59–75. https://doi.org/10.1891/1946-6560.3.1.59
[xviii] Hillstrom, C. (2022, March 1). ‘The Hidden Epidemic of Brain Injuries From Domestic Violence.’ The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/magazine/brain-trauma-domestic-violence.html