Package funnels millions to victims of domestic abuse

Tucked into President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package are tens of millions of dollars for organizations dedicated to curtailing domestic abuse, which skyrocketed during the pandemic, as well as vouchers for people fleeing violence at home, to help them find safe shelter and rebuild their lives.

These measures are the most concrete signals to date that Biden’s domestic policy agenda will aim to combat domestic abuse, an issue that has long animated his four-decade career in politics.

As a senator, Biden sponsored the bill that became the Violence Against Women Act, the first federal legislation intended to end domestic violence, which the House voted to renew Wednesday. As vice president, he created a position to coordinate federal efforts around abuse and sexual assault. That adviser reported to him.

As president, Biden signed off on a version of the American Rescue Plan that funnels $49 million in aid and hundreds of millions of dollars in housing assistance to victims who have been trapped during the pandemic with their abusers. A senior White House adviser will also focus on gender violence as part of Biden’s newly formed Gender Policy Council.

“The most vicious of all crimes are domestic crimes,” he said in 2009, when he was vice president. “The worst imprisonment in the whole world is to be imprisoned in your own home.”

Expected to be a signature legislative achievement for Biden, the American Rescue Plan has laid the groundwork for sweeping, progressive changes to decades of economic and social policies that have often favored corporations and the rich, with a vast share of the proposal to benefit Americans who are most in need.