Abused in Public Housing, Victims Often Face a Long Wait to Move

A 2013 provision to federal law was intended to ensure that domestic violence victims living in subsidized housing could move quickly to safer homes. But they often wait in fear.

For years, Natasha Parker was in a relationship with a man who would choke her, and would eventually stalk her and her daughter, and threaten her outside her apartment at a public housing complex in New York City, she said.

Ms. Parker, 46, decided to move out secretly when the abuse escalated in January 2023. She told the New York City Housing Authority that she was experiencing domestic violence and needed an emergency transfer. She was approved days later.

Still, Ms. Parker and her daughter ended up waiting for over a year and a half for an apartment to become available so they could move. In May 2023, while waiting to move, he kicked her door in, she said.

The wait made her feel “like a victim all over again,” Ms. Parker said in August, when she was still going through the transfer process.

Federal law under the Violence Against Women Act, whose passage 30 years ago was commemorated by the Justice Department this month, requires housing providers to assist in relocating their tenants in subsidized units when they are experiencing domestic violence, but many victims wait for months. A July report from the Government Accountability Office points to a lack of training, little policy direction and red tape as major barriers.

While waiting, low-income domestic violence survivors are often stuck between two choices: staying where their abusers can find them or moving to a homeless shelter, where the length of stay allowed is usually limited.

“People are trapped in unsafe housing and they are being forced to choose between their safety or their subsidy,” said Kate Walz, associate director of litigation for the National Housing Law Project, an advocacy organization that works on housing rights for low-income people.

Emergency transfers take time.

The Violence Against Women Act, known as VAWA, was originally passed in 1994, creating broad federal protections for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, stalking and other related crimes. In 2013, the law was updated to include the right of victims in federally subsidized housing to request emergency transfers, and it required housing providers to assist their tenants.

The idea was to create a pathway for victims to quickly and quietly move away from their abusers and into other subsidized units. But more than a decade later, housing providers and advocacy organizations agree that the safety net rarely works as intended.

Under rules made by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the agency has put in place implementation policies that some victim advocates consider hurdles to secure safe housing.

HUD determined that tenants seeking emergency transfers in subsidized private developments, such as those participating in the Section 8 affordable housing program, had to apply for available units as new tenants.

The department said that it was difficult to make seamless transfers from a private development to another because each government contract had different requirements.

People escaping violence across the country compete for limited units on waiting lists maintained by local housing providers or housing authorities amid a scarcity of affordable housing everywhere.

The rules encourage, but do not require, that victims on a housing waiting list are prioritized. The Government Accountability Office report found that only 17 of 60 public housing authorities and Section 8 properties that were sampled nationally prioritized VAWA requests in external transfers.

Housing providers and victim advocacy organizations complain that there is a lack of training to process emergency transfers effectively. Sometimes landlords and housing staff accuse domestic violence victims of lying or don’t know how to assist them, according to tenant advocates and others involved in the emergency transfer process.

Debbie Piltch, who is vice president of compliance at Maloney Properties in Boston, a company that manages over 10,000 units of mixed-use, market-rate and affordable housing throughout the New England States, said that housing providers were expected to comply with many rules, but received little support.

“There’s just more and more being asked of housing providers right now,” Ms. Piltch said. “It’s one thing to provide people a rule, but how do you implement it in a way that’s really effective for the population that this is supposed to positively impact?”

Congress granted HUD $10 million in recent years to train and provide technical assistance to housing providers for VAWA-related issues. The department said the agency began targeted trainings and assistance this year.

Waiting puts victims at risk.

While in the transfer process, victims of violence are usually trapped in their homes with their abusers living nearby or with them.

“They could die,” said Gabriela Sandoval Requena, director of policy and communications at New Destiny Housing, a New York City nonprofit that provides housing services to domestic violence victims. “Death is a real risk for survivors of domestic violence if they have nowhere to go.”

One 30-year-old woman living in New York City public housing was stabbed in front of her children while her emergency transfer request was pending. The woman, a mother of three whose name is being withheld at her request over concerns about her safety, survived.

After the attack, she was afraid to go outside with her children or even cook meals using knives, she said.

She said her transfer request had been approved for about three months when the stabbing occurred in March 2022.

She was eventually relocated in July 2023, after her caseworker tacked on a reasonable-accommodation transfer to her application, which applies when people with medical needs require different living standards. She was receiving ongoing mental health treatment after the abuse.

Her caseworker at Manhattan Legal Services, Luis Henriquez, who is the director of litigation for the organization, said that the woman had to wait because the New York City Housing Authority did not prioritize requests from domestic violence victims. The housing authority said that it treated requests from victims of violence just like it would several other types of transfer requests, including from crowded apartments. But it added that it was obligated to prioritize transfer requests from tenants in uninhabitable apartments and reasonable-accommodation cases.

A spokesman for the housing authority said in an emailed statement that the agency was “serving its residents and applicants as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

Some find help from local organizations.

Organizations that advocate the rights of domestic violence victims and representatives of the housing industry have lobbied to improve protections for those residents, proposing to set aside a pot of vouchers for emergency transfers.

The vouchers, which would allow those tenants to immediately seek units for transfer outside their housing complexes, could help expedite the transfer process and expand victims’ options.

Vouchers could be especially helpful in rural areas where housing options can be even more limited. But the proposal was cut from legislation during 2022 budget negotiations in Congress.

Andrea Miller, who works with victims across Kentucky, said she sometimes helped to move people across the state.

“Not only do we have a lack of affordable housing when people need to move, sometimes you just can’t find appropriate space for your family size in the more rural areas,” said Ms. Miller.

Ms. Miller knows many of the housing providers in her state and is able to connect victims to them, but there are no established channels for direct communication among the providers to identify vacancies, according to the Government Accountability Office report. Without assistance, victims search for units on their own.

In Chicago, housing providers, HUD offices and The Network, a victims advocacy organization, worked together to build a program among Section 8 owners that allows them to alert other property owners and to identify vacancies when seeking an emergency transfer.

Housing providers across Massachusetts are launching a pilot for a similar program this fall to connect property owners across housing subsidy programs with support from nonprofits.

Ms. Parker, the New York City woman who waited over a year and a half to be able to leave her apartment, moved in late August with help from the New Destiny Housing nonprofit.

“It shouldn’t have been that long,” she said of the wait. “The next person might not have the opportunity or the willpower or the strength. They might be six feet under.”

At one point, Ms. Parker recalled, she was so worried about being watched from the outside that she was scared to walk in her own home. Now, she said, she is excited about decorating her new apartment, which represents a fresh start for her and her daughter.