Title: For Those Fleeing Domestic Violence, Rental-Assisted Housing
Transfers Could Be Months Away

Description: Survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault often
flee their homes to get away from their attackers. This can result in
survivors having unstable housing situations. And for those who receive
government assistance, such as rental housing assistance, finding
another place to live can be even more challenging. The Violence Against
Women Act provides additional protections for survivors living in
federally assisted rental housing. But in a new report, we found that
survivors are not always able to access these protections. We find out
more from GAO's Jill Naamane.

Related work: GAO-24-106481, Rental Housing: Opportunities Exist to
Improve Oversight of Assistance to Survivors of Domestic Violence or
Sexual Assault

Released: July 2024

{Music}

[Jill Naamane:] Emergency transfers for survivors of domestic violence
or sexual assault can be really complex.

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi, and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for
fact-based, nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. Survivors of domestic
violence and sexual assault often flee their homes to get away from
their attackers. This can result in survivors having unstable housing
situations. And for those who receive government assistance, such as
rental housing assistance, finding another place to live can be even
more challenging. The Violence Against Women Act provides additional
protections for survivors living in federally assisted rental housing.
But in a new report, we found that survivors are not always able to
access these protections. Joining us to talk about this new report is
GAO's Jill Naamane, an expert on federal housing programs. Thanks for
joining us.

[Jill Naamane:] Happy to be here.

[Holly Hobbs:] So, Jill, when someone is in rental housing programs and
they leave their home because of domestic violence, what should happen?

[Jill Naamane:] Well, housing providers in these covered programs should
have a plan that outlines how the transfers will occur. And the basics
are the provider should see if they can find a safe and available unit
under their purview. And if they can't, they should assist the survivor
in identifying other providers that might have a safe and available unit
and help them in contacting different support organizations.

[Holly Hobbs:] So, how often does that happen or not?

[Jill Naamane:] We don't actually know how often this happens. HUD is
required to collect data on emergency transfers, but they haven't
finalized this process yet. But from what we can tell from our work
reviewing providers plans, there may be some problems. We reviewed 60
plans of providers from across the country, and we found that ten didn't
have any documented plan or policies in place. We found a handful
required documentation that was prohibited by HUD's regulations. And we
found that often the plans were not very specific about how survivors
might be prioritized in getting a new unit, or exactly what they would
need to do to switch programs or properties in order to be safe.

[Holly Hobbs:] So why wouldn't somebody get a transfer? What are the
eligibility requirements?

[Jill Naamane:] The requirements are pretty basic and not meant to be
burdensome. To really qualify for this protection, survivors only need
to reasonably believe that there's a threat of imminent harm, be in a
covered program, for example, we're looking at public housing, housing
choice vouchers, project based rental assistance; and they just need to
expressly request a transfer. And this can be in verbal or written form.
Survivors may also need to meet eligibility requirements of a new unit,
which might be different from the one that they were in. This is
particularly the case if they need to switch a HUD program, if they need
to move to a different property, or move to a different housing
provider. The different HUD programs have different income eligibility
requirements, for example, that a survivor might need to meet. And the
private housing providers in project based rental assistance might have
different tenant selection criteria that a survivor would have to meet.
And those could be related to their credit score or criminal history,
for example.

[Holly Hobbs:] So assuming you meet all of those eligibility
requirements and that you know about them, why might someone still not
get housing?

[Jill Naamane:] Yeah, it can be really difficult to find a suitable,
safe unit that meets survivors' needs. In particular, we heard about in
rural areas, there just aren't a large number of properties to choose
from. If the household needs a larger unit to accommodate a family, for
example, with multiple bedrooms that can be harder to find. Similarly,
if someone in the household has a disability, it can be difficult to
find safe and available unit with the appropriate accessibility features
that someone might need. And then we also heard about just a lack of
coordination among housing providers. So, there could be a safe and
available unit that meets all of the survivor's needs. And the provider
that they are working with is just not aware of it because of this lack
of coordination. And just in general, there is not a lot of availability
of rental-assisted housing. It could be 6 months or a year before an
available unit comes up that a survivor could transfer to.

[Holly Hobbs:] Six months, when you're in a crisis? 

[Jill Naamane:] Yes.

[Holly Hobbs:] So the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD,
it's overseeing these rental housing programs. What did HUD tell us
about this issue? What is HUD doing about it?

[Jill Naamane:] HUD has actually recently started a number of efforts in
this area. They hired a director who's focused on gender-based violence
prevention and equity, and they have a number of improvements in the
works. This director is really helping to coordinate policies across HUD
programs. HUD is working on making revisions to the model transfer plan
that providers can use in developing their own plans. They've drafted
regulations. They have some training plans in place, and they've done
some additional monitoring in this area.

{MUSIC}

[Holly Hobbs:] So Jill just told us that survivors of domestic violence
should be able to transfer to other rental assistance housing. But,
while HUD has taken action to improve these transfers, many still face
challenges accessing this new housing. So Jill, given all this, what
more do we think HUD should be doing?

[Jill Naamane:] We make seven recommendations to HUD in this report. And
they include finalizing some of those things that they have in the
works, finalizing regulations, finalizing this new model plan, getting
the data collection going. We also have recommendations related to
providing additional instruction to providers on how to implement
transfers--especially in the case where a survivor might need to be
switching programs or switching providers. And then we also have a
couple of recommendations about improving different aspects of HUD's
monitoring. And we think that these will really help improve the
emergency transfer process for providers and survivors.

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report?

[Jill Naamane:] I think a big takeaway from this report is that
emergency transfers for survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault
can be really complex. And that's not only because of different program
roles, limited vacancies, and the coordination that's involved; but
also, because it requires a real awareness of and sensitivity to the
trauma that the survivors are experiencing. We learned about strategies
that some areas are using to address the challenges involved in making
these transfers. And HUD has made some efforts and improvements in this
area. But we think that there's more that they could do to help
providers navigate this process. 

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Jill Naamane talking about our new report on
rental housing. Thanks for your time, Jill.

[Jill Naamane:] You're welcome. Thank you. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
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