NO PLACE LIKE HOME The Impact of Sexual Violence on Housing Kristin Weschler and Donna Greco [This project was supported by Grant No. 2009-TA-AX-K042 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.] MS. GRECO:I wanted to thank you for your interest in Housing and Sexual Violence. Kristin and I are going to introduce ourselves. My name is Donna Greco, and I’m the training and technical assistant supervisor at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and in my work as a social worker and as an advocate over the years, I’ve really come to witness just a recurring theme of economic insecurity that’s woven throughout so many people’s experiences whether it’s at the individual level or in the community in terms of resources and barriers that they may encounter in accessing assistance, and also definitely within the realm of prevention of sexual violence. I really care very deeply about this work, and I’m just really honored to share information with you all today, and to hear from you in terms of what you’re seeing in your local communities. My hope is that at the end of the training you’ll have some more resources and information and links and certainly relationships with other folks that will help assist you in your advocacy efforts at the local level. I just wanted to really emphasize that I think for both Kristin and I, we really want to be resources to you after this Webinar as well. MS. WESCHLER: And my name is Kristin Weschler. I’m a program specialist here at the Office on Violence Against Women, the U.S. Department of Justice, and with the transitional housing unit, we have three staff on our unit, and really excited to be a part of this call with Donna. We’ve done some workshops here in the past, but you’ll see from my presentation, I’m going to be doing a little bit of resources that are available through our office for transitional housing, but we’re finding with a number of our grants right now is it’s predominantly domestic violence programs. So we’re really wanting to see how we can respond adequately to victims of sexual assault and programs that serve survivors of sexual assault. So again, as Donna iterated, you know, we’re really looking forward to establishing collaborations and relationships with folks, and will certainly be available for questions or TA certainly after this presentation. “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” MS. GRECO: I wanted to start with this quote from Maya Angelou because we’ll be talking about a lot of connections between housing and sexual violence, and I think that this quote is just helpful in helping us frame the ideal that so many of us share, which is, you know, to feel safe and secure and at peace in our lives especially in our homes, and as we move through the world. And unfortunately, as you’ll see from some of the research and from what you all know already, as advocates, that for so many people who have been sexually assaulted, home is not a peaceful refuge, but rather a reminder of the assault. Sometimes it’s a trigger for the trauma. Sometimes it’s a place that’s located just a couple doors down from where the assault occurred or from where the perpetrator lived. Home may be a car, a shelter, a street or a couch that doesn’t provide the stability that a person needs to meet one’s basic needs. And certainly is often a structure that in and of itself is just not affordable or safe or secure for the family. You all bring a wealth of experience in advocacy already, and we hope to just build upon that in our time today. We’ll be providing some information from the scientific literature. We’ll also be discussing, as Kristin said, the OBW transitional housing program as a resource. We’ll also be looking to the spectrum of prevention as a blueprint for housing advocacy. And throughout the Webinar, we may mingle some of the scientific literature with some quotes from advocates who responded to a national survey that the NSVRC did on sexual violence and housing. And these quotes may sound very familiar to you because they were from advocates just like you who participated in the surveys, also in a series of focus groups and critical conversations over the past couple of years around this issue. And like I said earlier, we just really hope to keep building on our knowledge and in our awareness, and we’d love to hear from you about your experiences and those of the individuals you’re working with. Housing and Sexual Violence Resources at NSVRC www.nsvrc.org I wanted to just alert you. We have a very short time together today so I wanted to refer you to some additional resources that you’ll find on the NSVRC website. You’ll find a Fact Sheet and a Bulletin that provide a lot more information on some of the research that we’ll be covering today. You’ll also see a Report on that National Survey that I just mentioned, which compiles the responses that we received from over 200 advocates in 33 states, and one U.S. Territory on the issue of housing and sexual violence. You’ll also find a VAWnet Special Collection on Housing and Sexual Violence and two VAWnet Applied Research Papers that talk about housing, and we draw heavily from those papers in our presentation today. Laying a foundation for our discussion... So before we dive into the research, we thought it would be helpful to provide some framing pieces for our time together because both housing and sexual violence are such complex issues. There are many different ways to approach both intervention and prevention in these areas. We are providing a few frameworks that we draw from, but certainly this is not the only way to view both the issues of housing and sexual violence, but we just hope that some of these models and frameworks will be helpful just for our time and our thinking together today. MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS Peak Experiences Self-Actualization Psychological Needs Safety Needs (comfort) Basic Needs (survival) We start with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs because we are really approaching housing as a basic human right, and not just four walls and a roof, but a safe, affordable home that provides individuals with what they need to survive and really thrive in their lives. Maslow’s Hierarchy really shows us that people need some basic resources such as food, water, shelter, clothing, to feel safe in the world, and that before they can move up the pyramid to psychological needs and to success and self actualization, they really need to have those basic needs covered, and they also need to feel safe and protected from harm. So the intersections of housing and sexual violence really bring into sharp focus these first two layers of Maslow’s Hierarchy. And I think Maslow helped us also look at housing as both a protective factor to prevent sexual violence as well as a very essential need for someone who’s coping in the aftermath of sexual violence as well. THE ECOLOGICAL MODEL Individuals exist I and are influenced by a larger social context Societal Community Relationship Individual We also turn to the social ecological model. We know that individuals exist and are influenced by a larger social context. We know that sexual violence doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but it is perpetuated through relationships through the community and also at the societal level. When we think about sexual violence in housing and homelessness, we know that they are reciprocally relate; that sexual violence can jeopardize housing and that inadequate housing or homelessness can also then lead to further sexual violence. We know that violence against people who are homeless or living in substandard housing experience layers of trauma often stretching from childhood to adulthood, and that they are facing these traumas really with many barriers and shortages of services in their community and in their larger social structures. We also know that a range of factors increase the risk of adult sexual victimization among homeless women. We know that childhood sexual abuse, substance dependence, length of time that a person is homeless, the need to engage in economic survival strategies, location while homeless, the presence of mental illness, again inadequate resources and barriers to getting help, and then those layers of victimization and social inequality all contribute to the experience of sexual violence and its risk factors. THE SEXUAL VIOLENCE CONTINUUM, Source: Lydia Guy Ortiz Sexual violence can happen to anyone… but we know inequalities can influence risks and barriers. We also turn to this model created by Lydia Guy Ortiz that really links different forms of oppression with sexual violence, and while we know that sexual violence can happen to anyone, we also know that different forms of oppression can really influence risks and the barriers then face when they’re trying to get help. When examining housing and homelessness, it’s really important to use this lens and to understand the many layers of oppression that individuals may be experiencing. For instance, we know that women and children are two homeless subgroups that are rapidly growing; that women of color are just proportionately represented in subsidized housing and in poverty; that people who are struggling economically are challenged to meet their basic needs amid housing shortages in a volatile economy. We know that people with disabilities and people in later life have unique housing challenges due to accessibility and their reliability on caregivers. We’ll be exploring some of the research that really helps us understand these different forms of oppression and how they are connected with housing and sexual violence. “I think the bottom line is that when you have less resources, you have less options. That’s true for anyone. You have less options for childcare, for where you are going to live. If you are poor, you have less options about where you’re going to sleep tonight. A lack of resources and options can put you in danger of being sexually assaulted.” PA Advocate I wanted to just offer this quote from an advocate in Pennsylvania because I thought that it helped to shed light and articulate these complex connections that we’ll be talking about today and exploring in the research together. WHAT WE KNOW FROM RESEARCH General findings on homelessness and sexual violence So we’re going to start with some of the general findings on homelessness and sexual violence and then we’ll be moving into some rural information as well from the research. Before we start looking at the research, we need to acknowledge that there’s really a great deal of difficulty in defining and measuring homelessness and housing, as well as sexual violence. There’s different definitions that people use and also just the difficulty in measuring a very transient population and a very under-reported crime. There are also some limitations in the research on the intersections between housing and sexual violence, but we’re trying to draw from the best research that is out there. Majority of sexual assaults occur in or near victim’s homes And the research that does exist often includes primarily women in urban settings. So there are some limitations there as well. I think it’s helpful to kind of just start by looking at where do sexual assaults happen. More than 50 % of rape and sexual assault incidents were reported by victims to have occurred within one mile of their home or at their home. So you can then take the next step in thinking that this often creates a very urgent need and an urgent desire to relocate. And unfortunately for many victims and survivors, safer and more affordable options are out of reach. A couple quotes from advocates follow: “I’ve had clients who had to break leases in order to find safety, and this has been very costly. We have had clients who cannot afford to pay for deposits and other moving expenses as a result of being traumatized. They often stay in dangerous relationships due to lack of financial stability. A victim of sexual assault lived in an apartment building where she was assaulted. The person she accused had ties to the apartment and management and she was shortly evicted.” One out of four homeless women is homeless because of violence This study was of over 800 homeless women and about 100 homeless men in four urban locations in Florida, and they found just a high correlation between domestic violence, sexual violence and homelessness with one out of four women saying that violence was the reason they became homeless. This study also found that at the crux of so many adulthood vulnerabilities was childhood sexual victimization and they found a connection between childhood sexual assault and then adulthood further violence, homeless and substance abuse. 14% of homeless men had been raped; 86% had been physically assaulted in their lives 13% of homeless women were raped in past 12 months; half were raped at least twice This is the same study that found that of the 100 men surveyed, 14% had been raped and 86% had been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Another study found that 13% of homeless woman were raped in the past 12 months, and half were raped at least twice. A lot of the research showing sexual violence against homeless women finds that there’s really a high frequency of sexual assault and violence against homeless women; that they’re experiencing multiple victimizations and multiple sex acts within those victimizations by multiple perpetrators, and that when compared to their counterparts living in other forms of housing, there’s a heightened level of violence that’s used against them. 92% of homeless mothers report severe physical or sexual violence during their lives 43% report childhood sexual abuse 63% report intimate partner violence in adulthood Another study found that 92% of homeless mothers report severe physical or sexual violence during their lives, and again you see this connection with childhood sexual abuse with 43% reporting that they had also experienced sexual abuse as children, and 63% reported intimate partner violence in adulthood. So again you see those different connections between different forms of violence and those different layers of trauma that people are often carrying through their lives. Chance of revictimization for homeless women with mental illness close to 100% When we look at mental illness, it’s another layer. When we go back to that continuum that Lydia Guy Ortiz created, we can see that when you add mental illness to someone’s experience, there is, you know, another layer of risk and certainly another layer of barriers that people face when trying to get help or when trying to stay safe. In terms of adult women who have mental illness and who have also experienced child sexual abuse, the likelihood that they’ll be revictimized is close to 100%, making this experience almost a normative experience for homeless women with serious mental illness. 97% of homeless women with mental illness reported violent victimization during lifetime 28% reported assault in the past 76% of African American women attribute their rapes to riskiness of living situations (e.g., “I was living with a bad neighbor.”) Another study that just shows the connections with mental illness, 97% of homeless women with mental illness reported violent victimization during lifetime and then 28% had reported either physical or sexual assault within the past month. 76% of African American women in one study attributed their rapes to where they were living and the riskiness of where they were living. For example, “I was living in a bad neighborhood.” Additionally, that study found that a large percentage of African American women reported unwanted sexual contact while living in subsidized housing due to ongoing threats and violence by their partners. I think this again emphasizes those different connections between oppression, the connections between racism, classes, and in sexes, and certainly the disproportionate representation of women of color in subsidized housing. Some quotes from advocates on this topic follow: “A survivor was awarded subsidized housing and her place was robbed by a maintenance person. Another survivor was raped by a registered sex offender. In a sibling sexual assault, the mom lost her voucher and was ostracized by neighbors and evicted. The assaulting sibling was removed from the residence and mom and other children were left homeless. She chose not to report being raped because of the dangerous living conditions in her subsidized housing complex.” When we talked with advocates at the rural conference in Denver, a couple folks also identified racism and sexism in the screening process for tenants. One woman was talking about in western United States, landlords are refusing to rent to Native American women and other landlords are really not welcoming single mother tenants. 38% of respondents to national survey report landlord sexual assault Of those, 80% of tenants reported landlord refusal to make space safe and inhabitable In a study by Terry Keeley from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, she found that advocates reported out of 152 reports of sexual assault by a landlord, 38% of respondents reported that actual landlord sexual assault had occurred. And of those, 80% of the tenants reported landlords refusing to make the space safe and habitable. 44% of those reports were women living in subsidized housing. 32% of them were assaulted more than once, and 62% of respondents identified as rural advocates. And again, through her work and through her report, she talked about how different forms of oppression are exploited; that the landlord will often threaten retaliation by reporting the individual to immigration; by threatening to evict, by threatening to turn the water off, to turn the heat off, et cetera. And a quote from one of the advocates on this topic: “A 16-year-old I worked with had to decide whether to fight the mother’s landlord off or be compliant because the deal was give me your daughter and I won’t evict you.” In a study of 325 women in prostitution, 50% reported history of child sexual abuse 45% were homeless Survival for some homeless women is often contingent upon trading sex for basic goods such as food and shelter and clothing, medicine, transportation and protection. Sexual violence is a very common experience for women working in prostitution. And homeless women in prostitution are found to be at greater risk for sexual violence. Again, increased victimization, increased perpetrators than women in prostitution who have some access to housing. So I think it gets us back to looking at housing as that prevention and protective measure; that some shelter is better than nothing. A quote from an advocate: “Prostitution? Why not? I can sell my body. They took it for free at home. Now I can sell my body and get the things I need.” 61% of girls and 19% of boys ran away because of sexual abuse LGBT youth left home more frequently, were victimized more often than heterosexual counterparts This study found that 61% of girls and 19% of boys ran away because of sexual abuse, and that there are some estimates that a pimp will approach a teen runaway within 48 hours of leaving home. When we look at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youth, they left home more frequently, were sexually and physically victimized more often than their heterosexual counterparts, and experienced a greater number of perpetrators at 7.4 perpetrators of sexual victimization than their heterosexual counterparts. Rural findings on homelessness and sexual violence National Poverty Rate: 12.9% -- Rural Poverty Rate: 15.1% Now we’re going to move into some of the research that focuses specifically on rural. Before doing that, you all probably know much better than I do, that rural communities are often understudied and under-resourced, and that housing and homelessness studies do mainly focus on more urban populations, but we’re going to just share the best information that we were able to gather for the Webinar. When you look at rural communities when compared with the national poverty rate, there are persistent and higher levels of poverty in rural areas, which definitely influence their capacities to serve people who are homeless, and also contribute to a lack of resources in housing and shelter for people who need access. And certainly poverty affects individuals’ abilities to afford housing, to afford rent in rural communities. 7% of the nation’s homeless population live in rural areas Rural homelessness is often invisible Again, it’s really difficult to know the true prevalence of homeless in general and then homelessness within rural communities, but the best estimates we were able to find was that 7% of the Nation’s homeless population live in rural areas. We know that homeless in rural communities is often invisible. It’s often referred to as the hidden problem or people are often referred to as hidden homeless. Poverty, violence, lack of quality and affordable housing stock among the causes of rural homelessness They are often living in places that we don’t see. They may be camping in the woods. They may be sleeping in cars. They may be in abandoned farm buildings or in other housing. They may be doubled up or couch surfing. And again when we look at the root causes of homelessness in rural communities, its poverty, definitely sexual and domestic violence are identified as risk factors, and that lack of quality and affordable housing in rural areas. “Rural women indicated that without housing, using other services to cope with the violence was not likely to be helpful.” In a study of how rural and urban women perceive barriers to accessing services, they conducted focus groups with 18 rural women and 12 urban women to get a sense of what their perceptions were about services and accessing help, and I thought this quote from that study really would help us understand what it might be like to be a rural woman who has been sexually assaulted and also needs housing and other basic needs. And that until those housing needs are met, it’s not likely that services to cope and heal from violence can be helpful. It kind of gets us back to Maslow again. Farm workers often exploited by landlords, roommates and others in shared, isolated housing Also when we look at agricultural and rural communities it’s important to look at the experiences of farm workers who are often exploited by landlords and roommates and others in shared housing; that sexual assault is often a condition of work and life, and in their homes for many farm workers. Many live where they work so in order to escape the abuse and move, they also then lose their job and their main source of income and livelihood. They also have found that child sexual abuse may increase in shared living spaces, and that there is just this ongoing sexual violence and sexual harassment at work and at home for many farm workers. And this is from a guide book for legal providers produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Lack of housing, employment and stable support system contribute to sex offender recidivism Finally, we wanted to share some information on the perpetration of sexual violence. Many states throughout the country have buffer zone restrictions that prohibit known sex offenders from living in close proximity to bus stops, schools, parks, daycare facilities and other places where children gather. And this often results in sex offenders being pushed into more rural communities. They’re often moved into rural communities where they aren’t from, and so therefore, they don’t have social ties. They often face the same challenges in terms of lack of housing, unemployment. And again, without that stable support system, it’s been found that this can contribute to repeat offenses. And again, it brings us back to housing as a prevention measure for the perpetration of sexual violence. Now I’m going to turn it over to Kristin, who’s going to talk with you about the transitional housing assistance program. OFFICE ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN TRANSITIONAL HOUSING PROGRAM MS. WESCHLER: Thanks, Donna. I always appreciate that overview of sexual assault and also the important impact it has in rural areas. So what I’m going to talk about is the specific funding program that we have here at the Office on Violence Against Women for Transitional Housing. There may be some of you already on the calls who are rural grantees who also have transitional housing grant awards. There is some crossover, I know, in our program. So what we’re going to be kind of looking at a little bit more today is I’ll be going over what the current parameters are for our transitional housing program just so that you’re aware of what we have available through our office, but I’d also be interested in having questions or maybe how the program may be able to tailor the needs of survivors of sexual assault a little bit better, because as I said, most of our programs are domestic violence programs. Where we see sexual assault basically is, either as a secondary service, so it’s like sexual assault counseling, but it’s basically predominantly serving domestic violence victims, or we are starting to see more applications where they’re assisting victims of trafficking or prostitution, which we touched on a little bit in the previous slides. OFFICE ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN (OVW) The overall goal of OVW and the Transitional Assistance Program is to enhance the safety of victim/survivors of domestic and sexual violence by providing a wide range of flexible and optional services that reflect the differences in individual needs of battered women and their children, and that allows victims to choose the course of action that is best for them. So this is basically the overall goal for our Transitional Housing Program, which is basically to enhance the safety of victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence by providing a wide range of flexible and optional services that reflect the differences and individual needs of battered women and their children, and that allows victims to choose the course of action that is best for them. And I see, actually, that it doesn’t include dating violence and stalking. I need to include that in the updated presentation, but our – all of – well at least for transitional housing, that it includes domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence. And really the last sentence is something that’s very unique to our program here at OVW, which is where we implement what we call voluntary services model allowing the victims to choose what services that they went to participate in. Nothing is mandatory as a condition of receiving housing or of maintaining their housing. And I think I touch on that a little bit later in the presentation. ELIGIBILITY - 42 U.S.C. § 13975 Under Section 42 U.S.C. § 13975, grants under this program (transitional housing) support programs to provide assistance to individuals who are homeless or in need of transitional housing or other housing assistance as a result of fleeing a situation of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and/or stalking, and for whom emergency shelter services or other crisis intervention services are unavailable or insufficient. All right. This is – basically we have statutes for each of our programs here in our office, an so this is the statute of who can be served under the Transitional Housing Program, which basically there’s – I’ll read it and then I’ll kind of explain it a little bit more. It’s to provide assistance to individuals who are homeless or in need of transitional housing or other housing assistance as a result of fleeing a situation of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and/or stalking, and for whom emergency shelter services or other crisis intervention services are unavailable or insufficient. I know this causes a lot of questions and confusion for our current grantees, and this is something that we still discuss quite frequently here within our office because this is – we’re only in our sixth year of funding. So basically the two things that we really have to stress when we review applications and when we receive calls from grantees. is that they have to be homeless as a result of fleeing the crime, sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence or stalking. They can’t be facing homelessness as a result of an eviction or a possible foreclosure or something. They have to be homeless as a result of domestic violence or sexual assault. So that’s something that’s becoming more and more eminent, I guess, because of the lack of housing stock and the economy right now. We’re getting a lot of questions from people wanting to use grant funds to prevent foreclosures or evictions, and that’s just something that we can’t do with our grant funds, based on the statute here. And then the other thing was for emergency shelter services or other crisis intervention services are unavailable or insufficient. So we get questions from people about, do they have to come through shelter in order to get into transitional housing, and while that’s usually the most common course of people getting into our program, that’s not required. It may be that their shelter is at capacity, maybe even their transitional is capacity or something. So that’s not a requirement for our program here. And that might even be more the case in rural areas where, you know, again, you’re even your shelter services are limited. So you may not have the capacity to serve them in shelter and they could go straight into transitional housing as long as they meet this definition of “fleeing as a result”. STATUTORY PROGRAM PURPOSES By statute, funds under the Transitional Housing Assistance Program may be used for the following purposes: *Programs that provide transitional housing, including funding for the operating expenses of newly developed or existing transitional housing; *Programs that provide short-term housing assistance, including rental or utilities payments assistance and assistance with related expenses such as payment of security deposits and other costs incidental to relocation to transitional housing; and *Programs that provide support services designed to enable individuals who are fleeing sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and/or stalking to locate and secure permanent housing and integrate into a community by providing those individuals with services such as transportation, counseling, child care services, case management, employment counseling and other assistance. So these are our Statutory Program Purposes areas again, which are defined for us. This isn’t something we can be flexible with through our office, which we remind grantees. Sometimes they think there are changes we can make here in the office and some of it is defined for us. So this is what we’re held to, so there’s basically three program areas. The first is to provide transitional housing, and this can include funding for the operating expenses of newly developed or existing transitional housing. So this may be where the domestic violence sexual assault agency or housing authority got housing stock, and then you are providing funding for utilities or something like that. You can also – which is the second – I guess that kind of goes under the second one, too, where it says provide short-term housing assistance, where it says provide short-term housing assistance including rental or utility payment assistance and assistance with related expenses, such as security deposits and costs for relocation to transitional housing. So I guess the best way to describe those two first points is that we have – I see different housing models in how transitional housing is provided. One of them is what we call a clustered site where it might be the agency or a housing authority has an apartment building, and then they have 10 apartments, in that building. We call that a clustered site where they’re all in one place. Now it might be individual apartments or it could be that it looks more like a shelter model where they each have their individual bedrooms and then they share common areas. That is an allowable model, but it must clearly have – be operating as transitional housing and not shelter. So when we get applications, we look for very broad – and we’ll get to those in the next few slides – but more broad rules. We don’t even call them rules, but more policies and procedures where there’s not like curfews or rules and chores and stuff like that. It’s basically how you would live as you do in your own private home. That’s kind of what we want to see in the model here for transitional housing. So clustered site is one model. Another model, which we do see more often in rural programs is what we call co-location, which is where you might have an emergency shelter, but because of lack of housing, you will designate two, three bedrooms within your shelter for transitional housing. Again, that’s allowable, but you need to have very clear guidelines, separate guidelines for your shelter, versus transitional housing. We find this model doesn’t work as effectively usually with survivors because there’s, “why do they get to do that and I don’t?” And usually it’s a little bit more stressful on the program, but we recognize the challenges in rural areas and sometimes just an available housing stock. So we – it is a recognized model. And then the third model is what we call a scattered site, where either the agency or the survivor will rent from private landlords. It might be all throughout your county you might have I’m thinking of Maryland, because that’s where I’m from. You might have one in Frederick, one in Port Prince George’s County. I mean, usually it’s more geographical closeness, but you might have them in several different places within one county. And then either the survivor has the contract/lease with the private landlord or the agency will have the lease with the landlord and then sublease to the survivor. And there’s pros and cons with each of those scenarios. The benefit of the survivor having the lease is that then they’re establishing credit, which they may not already have, as well as then they can maintain that housing after their term in transitional housing ends. They just keep taking over the lease so they don’t have to move again. Now of course, then the downside of that is then their information is public. You might need a safety plan with them a little bit more. If you have an address confidentiality program in the area, you might want to look into that, those kinds of things. And then of course, if you rent through the agency and sublet to the survivor, then of course, there are more confidential situations, but then they’re not establishing the credit. So we allow the discretion of the program to make that decision. And then our third program purpose area is on the next slide, and that’s basically to provide supportive services. So you can use grant funds to provide services such as counseling, support groups, child care, transportation, case management, job training. We have some medical kind of expenses. Ours is one of the most flexible in our office when it comes to supportive services. Transportation might be CAT vouchers, bus vouchers. We allow a little bit for reimbursement for mileage for gas or something like that. Child care can either be through the agency or through independent child care providers, but we really want to see the full focus of support available. Again, our focus is the housing just like Maslow’s thing. We want to make sure the housing is established, but we also want to make sure that they have the supportive services to support them as they move forward. SCOPE Supportive services funded under the OVN Transitional Housing Assistance Grant can only be offered and provided to individuals who are victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and/or stalking, and receiving transitional housing services. For an individual to receive supportive services, they must either (1) reside in a transitional housing unit that is operated by the agency or project partner, or (2) receive short-term housing assistance (rental assistance). Let’s see, the next slide is our scope, and so when we say about moving forward, we do recognize, again, the difficult need to find housing, so what we require in our program is that all grantees must offer housing for a minimum of six months, and not to exceed 24. Now it used to be not to exceed 18 months, but based on feedback we got from our grantees, 18 months just was not enough time for someone to find permanent housing. I think we changed this maybe three years ago. So we certainly listen to feedback that we get from the field, and we’ll discuss and make changes as we can. And this is one of those changes. Now we say “offer housing for a minimum of six months” because certainly if someone finds housing within three, then that’s a success. We’re not going to chain them to the bed and say, “No, you can’t go. You have to stay for another three months.” But we want the survivor to not be stressed out about finding housing within three months. We want them to be able to, you know, have a chance to breathe, get themselves together, and so that’s why we have the minimum of six months to offer. And then we do allow a waiver for an additional six months as long as the survivor’s making a good faith effort to acquire permanent housing. So perhaps maybe they have a Section 8 Voucher that they’re having problems finding a landlord or housing authority to accept that, or maybe they just got a new job and now they’re just establishing, you know, enough money to get a security deposit and first month’s rent. So that’s something that we do allow. And then we also require that follow-up services, which include those supportive services, be offered for a minimum of three months after they secure permanent housing. Again to provide this continuum of service so they don’t move out and say, “sorry, you’re gone”, you know, because it’s another change, yet again, as they move into permanent housing, you know, where things are going to – they’re going to be responsible fully. So we want to provide that support three months. Some programs do up to two years. I mean, it’s really, again, up to the discretion of the program, but we require the minimum of three months. So one thing that we have clarified for our grantees in the last year is really who can receive services under our grant award. There was some confusion as, you know, they’re in shelters or not in shelter, but maybe they’re on a wait list and this kind of thing. So we came up with this clarification. So basically, support services can be offered to survivors who are basically receiving transitional housing services, which means they have to either reside in a transitional housing unit that’s operated by the agency or an MOU partner. So it might be a housing authority or something like that, or they receive short-term housing assistance, which we call rental assistance. So they have to either be in a unit or receiving financial assistance to pay their rent in order to receive the supportive services. They can’t just be in emergency shelter or own their own home and tap into the supportive services funded under our grant. That’s not to say that programs provide those services outside of our grant, but you just can’t use our grant funds unless they reside within housing that’s supported. I should clarify, it does not have to be supported with our grant funds. So I know a number of our transitional housing grantees have HUD funding, so it could be that, again, they reside in transitional housing, operate by the agency, but funded by HUD. That’s fine. Again, they’re in the housing unit operated by the agency. So we have some grantees whose units are wholly supported by HUD and then they justify to OVW for the supportive services. And that is certainly within scope and allowable, especially if you look at our budget cap for the last few years, you can’t do much with what we’re able to provide right now, so that’s something that we allow. ALLOWABLE / UNALLOWABLE COSTS OR ACTIVITIES *Programs may not mandate services for victims. Participation by individuals in support services shall be voluntary, and must not be made a condition for receiving housing assistance. Victims should not be ordered to attend therapy or other specific services or be penalized for choosing not to participate in the criminal justice system. So I’m going to go over some of our allowable and unallowable costs or activities, and I do this just kind of to see – I guess, to have a discussion at the end maybe or after the call or something about, again, how this may speak to victims of sexual assault. Some of it, I don’t think there’s any question, and then some I’m wondering if it’s more targeted to domestic violence. So I didn’t include everything that’s in our solicitation. I just kind of highlighted our main points. So this one I’ve already touched on a little but, but that is that grantees can’t mandate services, and that participation must be voluntary and not a condition for receiving housing assistance or maintaining housing assistance. So they shouldn’t be ordered to attend therapy or case management or anything as a condition of being in their housing. They should not be required to do background checks, drug testing, credit checks, anything that, as a condition of receiving housing. Now what we can’t – and that’s the special condition on our award. Now what we can’t do is require that of our – any private landlords. I mean, we ask that grantees educate, you know, give it as an opportunity for educating private landlords of how survivors may not have an established credit, why they may have a criminal background, you know, maybe they were shoplifting just to sustain themselves because of economic abuse or something in the relationship. So we ask it for a learning opportunity, but the special condition is the primary applicant and the awardees cannot require those as a condition for housing. Also like to require that they have a police report that – you know, so for sexual assault, that they can’t have housing unless they’ve made a police report. That is not within scope of this program. *Grant funds may not be used for addressing prevention activities (e.g., outreach to elementary and secondary schools, implementation of educational programs regarding domestic and dating violence intervention, and public awareness campaigns). Grantees are only permitted to engage in outreach activities to inform potential victims about the availability of services. In addition, grant funds may not be used to prevent homelessness by payment of mortgage, property taxes or other expenses that would prevent foreclosure or eviction. The next one is a little different especially for you rural grantees. So that’s why I included it in this presentation, is that you can’t use transitional housing funds to address prevention. And I know that’s a big thing under the rural program. So – where on the rural you can do like TSAs, public awareness campaigns, outreach to schools, all of that, you cannot do that with our funds. You can only use it to engage in outreach activities to inform potential victims about the availability of services. Or you cannot – is it included on here – you may also do it to educate like your MOU partners. So maybe you’re partnering with a housing authority and they don’t know much about domestic violence, there is a little bit of extension there, but you can’t go out and do Domestic Violence 101 or Sexual Assault 101 presentations to schools or the general public or service clubs with our grant funds. And I’ve touched on this a little bit in the sense that you can’t use grant funds to prevent homelessness, such as paying mortgage, property taxes or other expenses that would prevent foreclosure or eviction. That’s something we’ve since added to our solicitation in the last year. *Programs may not use grant funds to provide direct services to children, including children who witness domestic violence or are victims of child abuse, except where such services are an ancillary part of providing services to the child’s parent who is a victim of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence or stalking, such as providing child care services while the victim receives services. Another thing which is a little different under rural is we can’t use grant funds to provide direct services to children, including children who are witnesses of domestic violence, victims of child abuse, except where such services are secondary to providing services to the child’s parent. So where mom is a primary victim or the caregiver is the primary victim, then the child may be able to receive supportive services such as child care or counseling, but it can’t be the primary focus of funding or the grant application. *Grant funds may not be used for new construction, minor and/or major renovations (i.e., paint, carpet and repairs). Additionally, funds may not be used to purchase property. And then the next is that grant funds may not be used for new construction, minor or major renovations. This I get so many calls from programs who want to establish a new transitional program because of the lack of housing stock. Maybe they’ve been donated a building from the city or the county or something, and they want to, you know, renovate it. You can’t use grant funds for that, and you can’t use grant funds to purchase property. So even recarpeting, repainting, repairs, you cannot use our grant funds. Maybe you can use it for like general maintenance like snow removal, you know, something that’s going to impact their ability to stay in their homes, so if you have a clogged toilet, you know, you could use that. That’s for – I can’t say the word, but basically for safe housing, you know, so clogged toilet or anything, but you couldn’t replace a toilet. And there’s a lot – if any of the rural grantees got awards under Recovery Act, you know the loopholes and the jumps and everything you have to go through. There’s MEPA requirements and stuff. So as a general rule, we do not allow new construction or renovations under any of our programs because there’s a lot of legalities around that. So that’s why we do it, and a lot of programs now realize, after Recovery Act, why we’ve done I the way we have. OFFICE ON VIOLEENCE AGAINST WOMEN 800 K Street, Suite 920, Washington, DC 20530 (202)307-6026 www.ovw.usdoj.gov So the next slide, I just have our OVW contact information as an office as a whole because we do have a number of grants in our office. Transitional housing is just one, and of course, rural is another. On our website, we do have all of our solicitations posted. We don’t have any open right now, but you could go there and look under past solicitations if you want to know more detail about any of our grant programs. And I’m going to turn it back to Donna at this point. POSSIBLE STRATEGIES The Spectrum of Prevention, Source: The Prevention Institute MS. GRECO:Thank you, Kristin. We’d like to conclude our time today by talking about the Spectrum of Prevention and how it might be used to kind of make sense of all of this and provide a structured blueprint for what to do with all of this information. We certainly don’t have all of the answers, but we hope that this blueprint can kind of help you in sparking some questions in your local communities with your colleagues, with your partners, certainly back to us. We’d love to further these conversations about how to support you in, you know, looking at the research, applying it, and then also just, in your next steps in terms of your advocacy at the local levels. We’d love to help support you through technical assistance, additional training and resources, and we hope that you’ll include some of that in the evaluations that you complete at the end of the Webinar. I don’t know about you, but when I think about the issues of homelessness, housing and sexual violence and all of the issues of oppression that are interwoven throughout those three areas, it can feel very overwhelming. So what I like about the Spectrum of Prevention is that it offers these six levels of advocacy to consider in addressing the issue of housing. I’m just going quickly talk about each level, and then Kristin is going to talk about some examples of what a housing blueprint might look like based on the spectrum. Strengthening Individual Knowledge & Skills Level one is strengthening individual knowledge and skills, so this is where you might work with individual victims and survivors of sexual violence in terms of identifying protective housing resources in your community, perhaps helping them navigate those resources, assisting with applications, assisting with letters of support, accompaniments to different housing resources. Promoting Community Education The next level is promoting community education. This might entail working with the media or other forms of reaching large groups of people in your community with information about housing and sexual violence. Educating Providers The next level is educating providers. This where you might provide cross-training to providers to address sexual violence and prevention in their own organizations and in their own communities. Fostering Coalitions & Networks Fostering coalitions and networks would include multi-disciplinary groups of folks that you’re probably already working with who are invested in the issue of sexual violence. Changing Organizational Practices Changing organizational practices would be looking at your own internal organizational policies and seeing how they help support or hinder prevention of sexual violence. Influencing Policy & Legislation And lastly, level six is influencing public policy and legislation, so that would be, you know, working with legislators on educating them about the issues of sexual violence and prevention and supporting policies that further the prevention of sexual violence. And when you kind of get more and more familiar with this blueprint, you’ll probably feel very validated that you’re all probably doing a lot of amazing work at each level already. When we’ve talked with advocates from rural communities, they are, in fact, already doing a lot of these different activities, whether they identify them as the Spectrum of Prevention or not. And for many advocates, they’re trying a lot at the individual level, at the community level, but because there’s such a shortage of housing, resources at those levels, they’re finding that they need to really climb up that spectrum and look at changing policies and practices and looking at public policy and legislation to help increase funding, to help increase the research on this issue and to also further public policies that really support sexual assault victims in the area of housing. LEVEL 1 Working with individuals to understand housing needs and resources to implement strategies for expanding housing options in their lives. LEVEL 2 Providing community education programs about housing and sexual violence to increase collaborations and housing options in your community. LEVEL 3 Informing providers in your community about what they can do to identify and respond to the housing needs of sexual violence victims and survivors. Educate providers about what they can do to prevent housing risks. MS. WESCHLER: I was kind of just looking – I think I’m going to – may talk more generally about some areas and then tie then into some of the specific spectrum areas. So for instance, I got thinking about – someone asked a question about the VAWA re-authorization. So for those who aren’t aware, VAWA is up for re-authorization right now, and right now the housing protections under VAWA do not cover sexual assault. It covers stalking, domestic violence and dating violence, but not sexual assault. So that might be one area, if you think of influencing policy and legislation, you know, if you want to, you know, get in touch with your congressmen or whatever, bringing that to her attention, you can use, certainly some of the information that Donna and I have presented today in demonstrating the impact of sexual assault and housing, and specifically in rural areas if that’s something that is important to you. And that, also then kind of ties into the educating too. This says educating providers, but it could tie into to educating or promoting community education, you know. Use this as an education opportunity for your congressmen. I’ve also touched on, you know, a little bit about educating people within your service area as far as private landlords when you’re dealing with them about the impact that an eviction might have on them, you know, even though it may not be protected under VAWA right now, for sexual assault at least, whether you’re talking about domestic violence or sexual assaults, the impact that that might have on them without the housing and I don’t know if they’ll really want to look at Maslow’s kind of hierarchy there, but that’s where you could kind of start. They might go cross-eyed if you just show them a chart, but you can start with that basic need for housing, and you know, in order to really build on the recovery and self-sustaining skills; that is such a primary, basic need. LEVEL 4 *Bring together coalitions and networks of providers and organizations to strategize about housing in your community. LEVEL 5 *Develop organizational policies and practices that are responsive to the housing needs of your community. LEVEL 6 *Inform policy and legislation that responds to the housing needs of your community and enables preventive efforts to flourish. One thing I can also touch on is as far as changing organization practices. At least under our grant award, this is something that we require all of our grantees, actually, for transitional housing is that we work with them in developing and revising some of their practices or policies in providing housing. We have a TA, or Technical Assistance grant, with the National Network to End Domestic Violence who does excellent, excellent work with our grantees and doing revisions about this. And so we can touch on the voluntary services piece of that. We can touch on how to screen for sexual assault either as an agency yourself or maybe with a housing authority or something, just bringing, again, education awareness to the importance of screening for sexual assaults that is often, at least in my experience, missed, you know. It’s usually you focus on the bruises and the domestic violence, and sexual assault is not screened for. And fostering coalitions and networks, this is something that really, really predominant in all of our programs here at the Office on Violence Against Women, where we require Memorandums of Understanding, I would say, I think for all of our grant awards, where you have to demonstrate collaborations with other partner agencies. And for the housing program specifically like if you’re a domestic violence or a sexual assault program, we require that you partner with at least one other service agency. So whether it’s a job training, child care, housing authority, something like that, you’ll have to partner with at least one other. And then if you’re not, as an applicant, you are not a domestic violence, sexual assault agency, you must partner with one in your area. Again, looking at the population we’re serving, we need to be aware of their specific needs, and we need to be trained to meet those needs. So the collaborations and network is vital really, you know, to providing that continuum of service. We do not expect someone to be the master of all trades, you know. Let – build on your collaborations. Let the job training folks do their stuff, substance abuse do their stuff, safety planning, you know, domestic violence, sexual assault do their strengths. And that’s really going back also to the strengthening individual knowledge and skills, you know, really stay true to yourself and we actually protect those dollars in our MVW awards. We require that grantees set aside funds for training and technical assistance, and that is all they can use it for. I know in my previous experience I appreciated that as a grantee; that often times as a grant administrator when I had to make decisions, training dollars were the first thing I had to cut. And here at that office [inaudible] and that is something that we protect and I know you’re grantees so you’re all aware of that, but that’s something that I certainly value so that it’s something that we can build the knowledge and skills for you, who are doing the leg work, and the ground work, at the ground level, you know, we want to support you thee best to our ability, and that’s why we have the training dollars and our grants with our technical assistance providers. So, is there anything you want to add there, Donna? MS. GRECO: Thanks, Kristin. I wanted to also share some of the background information about the spectrum, which I neglected to do on the introductory slides. I think one of the great things about this model is that each level really builds upon the other. So it’s – the sum is greater than its individual parts, and it really works. I mean there’s lots of overlaps between the various levels of advocacy, and that really, it works best when you kind of create a unified goal, and then each level is working towards that goal. So for instance if your goal in your community is to establish greater access to affordable housing, then each level would be unified under that main goal. So again, if we can provide technical assistance or information on the spectrum, I know that the guide is on our website at NSVRC.org and we’d just love to talk with you more about it. We are going to unmute our lines so that we can hear more from you all. We have about 30 minutes left and we just wanted to hear really what are you seeing in your communities in terms of and sexual violence? What are some of the needs you’re hearing, the barriers, and also the successes that you’re experiencing? And also what you might already be doing? And maybe you could share some of your successes and/or some of your frustrations with your peers. And so I’m going to go ahead and unmute the lines. What are you already doing in your community along the Spectrum levels? MS. GRECO: Would someone like to share what they’re seeing in their community? MS. HENDERSON: Okay. This is Angela Henderson. I’m from Freeport, Louisiana. And I was a providence house. What we’re seeing, of course, is a lot of evictions. I am the sexual assault manager here, and we have an influx of -- my office is housed inside of a safe house, so I’m right beside the domestic violence director. So a lot of people are coming in with sexual A and DV combined due to evictions. One thing that we have, we are in the umbrella program, so we also serve homeless individuals whether they have sexual assault or domestic violence issues, you know, it doesn’t have to be that specific. So we do have scattered sites, transitional housing, that our women are able to go to. MS. GRECO: Great. Thank you. MS. HENDERSON: Welcome. MS. GRECO: If you’re not sharing any feedback, if you could just keep your individual line on mute, by hitting *6, and then certainly if you’d like to contribute, *6 again. Thank you. MS. HENDERSON: Okay. Is this Donna or Kristin speaking? MS. GRECO: This is Donna. MS. HENDERSON: Okay, Donna, this is Angela again, and something they just said that was profound is that we need to educate the landlords. I just had a landlord call me this morning before the Webinar with a dilemma of a woman being evicted. She just said, you know, continuous problems, but she didn’t go into detail. So I did get her information to call her back after lunch, you know, and kind of talk with this landlord and see what it is. So I’m thinking about maybe taking a poll of our local apartment facilities here, and kind of seeing if they’re having people with domestic violence or sexual, you know, if they identify with those issues, because they don’t really know what’s going on. They just know that maybe their apartment is trashed or the police is always called there. They don’t know the situation. So I’m thinking about probably taking a poll to see, so we can kind of reach out to them because we always reach out to the community, and you know, our partners that we always work with, but we have to broaden the spectrum because, you know, it overlaps into everyone’s arena. MS. GRECO: I think that’s a great suggestion, and even though some of the research really shows how landlords are often unresponsive, and certainly in the case of the study that Terry Kelley did also sometimes perpetrators of sexual assault, they can also be allies in this and partners. MS. HENERSON: Right. Okay. MS. GRECO: We received a technical assistance request a few weeks back from a landlord who really wanted to do the right thing for his tenants who were being threatened with sexual violence and had been on our website and was researching prevention and was just really all about doing the right thing. So I think it’s really important, like you said, to hone in on how they can be really helpful partners as well. Thank you. MS. HENDERSON: So did you say that – I’m sorry, this is my last question. I’m so excited about this information. Did you say that when they go into transitional housing even under our umbrella, that they don’t have to have background checks or is that something that the landlord should not be doing OVW transitional housing awards, if you are a sub-set of an umbrella organization, the common ones that I usually see are like a YWCA or a Catholic Charity or something, that is who our award is made with. MS. HENDERSON: Okay. MS. WESCHLER: That is who should not doing background checks, credit checks, [inaudible] and that kind of thing. It’s then that you might be using private landlord housing… MS. HENDERSON: Um-hum. MS. WESCHLER: …reach, you know. We can’t carry everything and mandate it not who we have the award with. We have the award with Catholic Charities. MS. HENDERSON: Okay. MS. WESCHLER: I’m just looking on the Webinar and I see Amanda had a question. Okay, if anyone else has a question. JESSICA: Hi. This is Jessica with [inaudible] Anti-Violence Project, and I don’t have – I kind of have a question and a comment. We work with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [inaudible] violence so something we see a lot in our community is LGBT youth who’ve been – who are homeless because they’ve come out, because of their identity, and that increases their victimization, and what we find a lot of is that older predators will invite them into their homes as a way to get them off the streets and then that will turn into a violent situation and an abusive situation. And so we have had wonderful temporary living programs in our community that have been able to link up those youth with housing, and allow them to have that safe place. But I guess my question is how to do that more quickly because when youth are – when youth are on the streets and they don’t have a place to stay that first night, [inaudible] know that they can go to a shelter. Often shelters aren’t necessarily safe in our area, and those temporary living programs, you know, you have to go through a process to get into them. So I guess I was just kind of wondering how to improve that connection. MS. GRECO: If I could just remind folks to please mute your lines if you’re not sharing feedback with us right now because we can hear a lot of static in the background. To mute your line, please press *6. Thank you. And thank you for that question. First, I think it’s great that you’re doing that outreach with LGBT youth. One thought that came to mind, because I know these questions came up when we presented in Denver, and also in our conversations with advocates over the past couple of years, but sometimes it’s about those relationships that you build with your local partners, so maybe in terms of expediting resources to youth who are running away, maybe developing those relationships with the outreach workers who are on the streets and doing that kind of outreach and connecting with youth on the streets. I don’t know if that would be helpful in your community. JESSICA: Yes, definitely. Definitely. UNKNOWN: Right, but how – they’re provided grant money to – for…. MS. GRECO: Are there other questions or other ideas that folks have about the spectrum or just what you’re seeing in your community? UNKNOWN: I’ll print this out because they went through the whole thing about what their stipulations are… MS. HENDERSON: Kristin? Donna? Hello. MS. GRECO: Yes. MS. WESCHLER: Hello. Yes. MS. HENDERSON: This is Angela Henderson again. I wasn’t able to view the Webinar, but I listened the entire time, so if you could send me a copy of it – can you e-mail me a copy of it or… MS. GRECO: Absolutely. And all of our resources will be on our website at NSVRC.org… MS. HENDERSON: Okay. MS. GRECO: …but we can most certainly make sure that you get connected with all the resources, Angela, and then just for other folks on the call, if you’ve had any technical difficulties, we do have a page on the website that’s specifically devoted to housing, and our slides will be there, as well as a lot of the resources that we highlighted in this presentation. MS. HENDERSON: Okay. Cool. You guys were great. Thank you so much. MS. GRECO: Thank you. Okay. Well, thanks for that feedback. And again, we really hope you reach back out to us, and we’ll be reaching out to you again to ask you to do some evaluation of this webinar. MS. HENDERSON: All right. Thank you so much. MS. WESCHLER: I see on the Webinar that it looks like Megan – Megan, do you have a question? I don’t see anyone responding to the ones on line, Donna, so unless anyone else has questions… MS. GRECO: Okay. Great. Our contact information is there. If you do have further questions that come up. CONTACT INFORMATION KRISTIN WESCHLER, Program Specialist, Office on Violence Against Women (202) 305-2713 Kristin.weschler@usdoj.gov DONNA GRECO, Training & Technical Assistance Supervisor National Sexual Violence Resource Center (877)739-3895, ext. 131 dgreco@nsvrc.org And we would just like to leave you with sort of a positive because we’ve gone through a lot of really challenging information, just about the connection between housing and sexual violence, but this was a quote from a woman who is homeless, and she said: “Just to know that someone cares is the main thing, I guess. Most of the people on the street don’t have anyone. We end up with no one when we come out here, and you think that no one cares, no one worries about you, and no one’s willing to listen to what goes on in your life…what problems you have.” Rebecca And she was talking about just the role of advocates and the role of those outreach workers who do go out and make those connections and do care, and do try to connect then with some helpful resources to help them cope. We just wanted to really thank you for your interest in this Webinar and in the issues of housing and sexual violence, and please look for an e-mail that will be coming to you regarding the evaluation, and we’d love to hear all of your feedback to help us continue to improve on our training. Thank you.