Cornyn seeks to help victims of domestic abuse with housing
Measure counters HUD rule change endangering grants supporting havens from domestic violence.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn appeared Friday in Austin to unveil legislation, to be filed next week, designed to protect housing opportunities for victims of domestic violence.
A rule change at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has endangered grants needed for long-term housing, depriving victims and their families of safe, stable places to live until they can get back on their feet, said Cornyn, R-Texas.
“Sometimes, when the big, nameless, faceless bureaucracies just don’t respond, you have to exert a little bit more pressure, and that’s what this legislation will do,” Cornyn said.
While in Austin, Cornyn met with leaders of domestic violence programs who said the rule change will cut vital federal funding for “transitional housing” — an important step between shelters and permanent housing that includes counseling, child care, career training and classes in parenting, financial management and other subjects.
The goal is to provide between six months and two years of housing, allowing victims to become self-sufficient while keeping them safe from abusers, said Kelly White, chief executive of the SAFE Alliance, which formed with the merger of the Austin Children’s Shelter and SafePlace.
Cornyn also toured SafePlace’s transitional housing campus — 39 apartment-like units behind locked gates and metal fences — that faces closure if HUD cuts off its grants. The campus, which offers the only transitional housing for domestic violence victims in Austin, received $624,678 in HUD grants last year.
“You just can’t put somebody in an apartment and expect them and their children to completely heal from the domestic violence that they’ve gone through,” Cornyn said. “I’ve learned something here today about the importance of this transitional housing.”
Cornyn said his bill, the Helping End Abusive Living Situations Act, or HEALS Act, will direct federal housing officials to make it a priority to fund transitional housing for domestic violence survivors.
Currently, HUD’s financing formula puts a higher priority on directing money to programs designed to end chronic homelessness, resulting in a financial crisis for domestic violence groups, he said.
Rebecca White, with the Houston Area Women’s Center, said HUD’s one-size-fitsall solution to homelessness fails to acknowledge that homeless domestic violence survivors have different needs.
“Some are in true danger. Some are suffering from trauma and need a period of time and safety to stabilize, and some just really do need to be hidden for a while,” White said. “We need to be able to find safe housing for them. That is one of the biggest barriers that keeps them in abusive relationships.”
HUD officials have acknowledged the problem its policies will cause to victims of domestic violence, but they declined to offer a fix, Cornyn said.
“We asked politely at first, now we’re going to insist,” he said.