The Housing Crisis No One’s Talking About

When M, an undocumented immigrant woman living in New York City, came to the country in 2019 with her toddler son, she relied on her abusive partner for housing. Within months, after prolonged “psychological, physical abuse, blackmail,” and some other acts that M told me she didn’t initially recognize as abuse, her partner forced M and her son onto the street, where she would find herself bounced from one shelter to another for the next three years. “I didn’t know anyone,” M told Jezebel. “I didn’t know anything. I’d just come here.”

Housing and shelter policies were almost impossible for her to navigate, and she was shuffled between four different shelters. At least two shelters said her immigration documents—or lack of documents—weren’t accepted. She stayed at the second shelter for almost a year, before she saw her abusive partner lurking outside twice and had to leave for her and her son’s safety. Throughout the ordeal, M was searching for permanent housing, but she couldn’t find anything she could afford, and landlords often turned her away, sometimes exploiting her lack of knowledge of the thorny complexities of city housing law. M’s struggles were exacerbated by the fact that, during this period at the height of the covid pandemic, shelters in the city began downsizing to limit the spread of the virus.

Eventually, in the fall of 2022, M’s case manager connected her with New Destiny Housing, the only organization in New York City focused solely on creating permanent homes for domestic violence survivors. The organization was able to help her find a landlord who would accept her housing vouchers and advocated for M and her son. Two years later, M still lives in the same apartment. 

New York state operates 122 domestic violence programs located in 69 cities, per Domestic Shelters. Around 3,100 people stayed in New York City-operated domestic violence shelters alone every night from Jan. 1 to March 22 in 2022, City Limits reported that year. Several studies have shown that about 80% of mothers experiencing homelessness say they’ve previously experienced domestic violence.

M’s years-long experience navigating the shelter system is common among domestic violence survivors—and, in too many cases, they don’t receive the sort of help that M did from New Destiny Housing. As the organization outlines in a new report published this month, the housing crisis for domestic violence survivors has become increasingly dire. After five years of compiling the report, this is the first time that domestic violence is a larger driver of family homelessness than evictions. In 2023, 20.3% of families with children entering shelters cited domestic violence as the reason, with evictions responsible for 11.1%. More than one-fifth of families with children specifically identified domestic violence as the cause of their homelessness. For perspective, from 2018 to 2023, the percentage of families led by domestic violence survivors leaving an emergency shelter for permanent housing decreased by 18%.

 

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Like M, when domestic violence survivors and their children leave one public shelter, it’s often for another. Per New Destiny Housing’s research, of the 2,284 survivor-led households who exited an emergency shelter in 2023, 50% went to another shelter. Just 9% moved to a permanent home. The organization also surveyed a panel of 24 experts who have helped domestic violence survivors and their families find permanent housing, and 82% of the panel identified a lack of affordable housing options as the greatest barrier. 

Nicole Branca, executive director of New Destiny Housing, told Jezebel that the report’s staggering findings—which include that the domestic violence homicide rate jumped 30% from 2021 to 2022, despite an overall decline in the rate of violent crime—reflect the lesser-known, deep economic impacts of experiencing domestic violence. (The NYPD files one domestic violence incident report every two minutes and the city’s 24-hour hotline receives a call reporting domestic violence every six minutes, per New Destiny’s report.) Branca pointed to one study that showed between 94 and 99% of domestic violence survivors have also experienced economic abuse. “Many people have this conception of abuse as just being physical, or emotional abuse—not abusers, for example, ruining their victim’s credit score, or controlling their access to money and resources,” Branca said.

Branca also stressed that most shelters require victims to vacate within 180 days, which is a limit set by New York state to account for strained capacity; in 2022, City Limits reported that this time restriction combined with lacking options for affordable housing drove more than 1,550 families from domestic violence shelters to city Department of Homeless Services shelters. “At this point [180 days], they and their kids might be just starting to find their footing again, found a job, found a school for their kids, and all of that’s disrupted again,” she said. Many victims don’t have options for which shelters they relocate to, and often have to move to a new shelter that’s far away from their job or their children’s schools. “It can be impossible to establish any kind of stability, let alone start to heal from the abuse and all they’ve gone through.”

M told me her experience as an undocumented immigrant created additional barriers, as some shelters would turn her away when she couldn’t complete extensive background checks that sometimes required documentation she didn’t have. New Destiny Housing’s report showed women of color are disproportionately represented among survivors in domestic violence shelters: In 2022, nearly 90% identified as Black or Hispanic.  

The lack of affordable housing compounds the other devastating economic consequences of experiencing gender-based violence. According to data from the Department of Justice, rape costs victims more than any other crime ($127 billion annually.) A 2022 study of national data from almost 36 million visits to the emergency room in 2019 found costs for sexual assault-related visits averaged $3,551 for all victims.

New Destiny Housing’s report includes a list of policy recommendations to support domestic violence survivors struggling with housing insecurity, including more government investments in public housing; a statewide Section 8 program for domestic violence survivors and other vulnerable populations; more funding for advocates and case managers for domestic violence survivors to navigate the complexities of finding affordable housing; and assurance that undocumented survivors like M can access affordable housing vouchers. 

After domestic violence survivors find permanent housing, Branca stressed that it’s also important for them to remain connected to advocates and case managers who can ensure they’re set up for long-term safety and success: “They’ll need help getting their kids in schools, or being connected to doctors and health care workers, or how to make sure they can keep getting public assistance,” Branca said. “All of this can be incredibly difficult to navigate”—especially when someone else has been holding control over their lives and finances.

The stakes of helping domestic violence survivors and their children find permanent housing are significant and long-term, Branca said. “Most of our households are single moms with kids, and they all talk about the trauma their children have gone through, the long-term needs those kids are now going to have to move forward.” In other words, the impacts of abuse don’t magically end when families escape their abusers—or when families are able to find permanent housing.