People who live in subsidized housing and are domestic-violence victims are supposed to be able to move quickly to safer places, according to a 2013 provision to federal law. “But they often wait in fear,” The New York Times reports, as it reports on victims who were approved for emergency transfers but did not get new apartments for months or even years. Advocates have lobbied to improve protections for those residents, proposing to set aside a pot of vouchers for emergency transfers that would allow those tenants to immediately seek units for transfer outside their housing complexes.
The 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 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. “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.
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