Gabriela Sandoval Requena
Director of Policy and Communications
March 21, 2024
Thank you, Chairs Lee and Schulman, members of the City Council Committee on Health and Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction 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 leading cause of homelessness in New York City. In 2022, 10,640 survivors sought refuge in Human Resources Administration (HRA) domestic violence shelter.[iii] Meanwhile, more than 1 in 5 families with children who entered the separate Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter system identified domestic violence as the reason for their homelessness in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023.[iv][v]
Once in HRA 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 New Yorkers for housing. In 2022, more than 1 in 2 survivors left shelter for shelter and only 6% were able to secure permanent housing, with only 32 survivors moving to supportive housing.[vii]
OPENING NYC 15/15 SUPPORTIVE HOUSING TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS
In November 2015, the de Blasio administration announced the creation of a city-funded supportive housing initiative called New York City 15/15, which would develop 15,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 years. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene manages the social service contracts.
Supportive housing, that is affordable housing with onsite services, is one of the safest and most cost-effective housing solutions for survivors of domestic violence. Yet, unlike New York State supportive housing programs, 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.
Domestic violence has long-lasting physical and psychological consequences. We know this because New Destiny has state-funded supportive housing and we see year after year, the long-term stabilizing effect our supportive services have on both our survivors and their children that experienced or witnessed the violence. Survivors are 31% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 51% are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.[viii] At least half of survivors experience post-traumatic stress disorder and depression;[ix] moreover, survivors can sustain head trauma more often than football players, but they are rarely diagnosed.[x] In fact, the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control now recognize intimate partner violence as a leading cause of traumatic brain injury.[xi] Permanent, supportive housing is a lifeline for domestic violence survivors who need housing and some level of support to attain and maintain stability. Expanding NYC 15/15 to survivors will also help fill units significantly faster.
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 calls on the administration to implement the Supportive Housing Network of New York’s recommendations to enhance 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.
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 renewed funding in FY 2025. Council Discretionary Funding enables New Destiny to 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] New York City Department of Social Services. (2023). 2022 Annual Report on Exits from NYC Domestic Violence Shelters.
[iv] 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
[v] 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%).
[vi] New York City Department of Social Services. (2023). 2022 Annual Report on Exits from NYC Domestic Violence Shelters.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Mazza, M., Marano, G., Gonsalez Del Castillo, A., Chieffo, D., Albano, G., Biondi-Zoccai, G., Galiuto, L., Sani, G., & Romagnoli, E. (2021). Interpersonal violence: Serious sequelae for heart disease in women. World journal of cardiology, 13(9), 438–445. https://doi.org/10.4330/wjc.v13.i9.438
[ix] 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
[x] 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
[xi] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Get the Facts about TBI. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html