Restoration Magazine

Policy Recommendations to Increase Safe Housing for Survivors: Learning From & Leveraging Public-Private Partnerships

In October 2023, the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center (STTARS) and the Office of Family Violence Prevention Services hosted a roundtable discussion on safe housing solutions for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. STTARS had the opportunity to bring together members of its National Workgroup on Safe Housing for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Survivors of Gender-Based Violence to Washington, D.C., for this convening.

This ambitious event was convened through the collaborative efforts of STTARS, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, and the National Network to End Domestic Violence, who have a longstanding partnership in gender-based violence and housing insecurity. This convening was transformative because it centered and uplifted the voices of individuals with lived experience. This roundtable discussion brought together survivors, advocates, domestic violence and sexual violence coalitions, national and regional housing experts, federal partners, Tribal leaders, and partners from public and private industries from across the country.

Though the meeting took place in October 2023, the report was recently approved for dissemination and can be accessed here. The report shares key insights and recommendations that emerged from the roundtable but focused originally on addressing an integral question: How can we leverage public and private partnerships to increase safe housing options for survivors of gender-based violence?

Framing the Problem in Indian Country

The need for safe, accessible, affordable, and sustainable housing is a grave concern for AI/AN gender-based violence survivors. This is especially true considering that domestic violence and sexual assault are leading causes of homelessness in most communities within the US. The shelter and housing “crisis” in Indian country for AI/AN and other Indigenous peoples is nothing new. Access to land, safe housing, and shelter issues have been present since Indigenous lifeways and Tribal Nations were violated by colonization and dispossession. The basic lack of housing for AI/AN people is factually the result of massive land theft, systemic removal, relocation, and other intentional acts across the timeline of the United States’ history. Thus, the housing crisis in Indian Country must be viewed first as a historical injustice, one that has been utilized as a tool in the ongoing genocide of Indigenous populations. The same is true for the high incidence of gender-based violence in AI/ AN populations. The housing crisis and the high rates of violence, lack of adequate resources, and criminal justice response to violence across Tribal Nations and in communities where AI/AN people reside cannot be viewed as randomized or even consequential occurrences but rather as manifestations of a larger goal: The eradication of Indigenous people from their lands.¹ Though Native women experience violence at incredibly disparate rates, it is just as alarming that 38% of those women reported they were unable to access necessary services (there are currently fewer than 50 Tribal domestic violence shelters).²

The 574 federally recognized Tribes are distinct sovereigns within the United States, yet they lack a key function of inherent sovereignty: The ability to tax. Therefore, many Tribes cannot fund the infrastructure that would allow them to convert existing physical space for shelter or transitional housing programs. Without the ability to use funds for construction (or even rehabbing existing space), Tribes looking to start a domestic violence shelter or transitional housing program run into a near-impossible hurdle. In Indian country, the primary housing funding source is Indian Housing Block Grants, which are authorized under the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act (NAHASDA), which is currently unauthorized. Public-private partnerships are nonexistent for the vast majority of the 229 Tribes in Alaska and for the Tribes in the lower 48. For Alaska specifically, per HUD’s Office of Native American Programs (ONAP), it costs approximately $1 million to run a mile of infrastructure in the villages, and the required infrastructure to utilize some of the available public dollars does not exist. Homelessness in Alaska often looks like it does for a lot of Indian Country: Doubled up and overcrowded.

Advancing Solutions Through Policy Change and Resources

We encourage you to access the full report but highlight key policy recommendations that were uplifted during the convening:

1. Refrain from the criminalization of homelessness at every governmental level of lawmaking.
2. Create low barrier access by incentivizing processes to screen in rather than screen out.
3. Support meeting people’s basic needs, starting with Universal Basic Income.
4. Adequately fund Tribal domestic violence shelters and identify and increase funds for the development of physical space.
5. Abide by the Federal Trust Responsibility with Tribes, uphold and respect self-determination principles and never implement rules or regulations absent meaningful, robust, and consistent consultation as required by federal and treaty law.
6. Invest $5 million in creating a federal research program under the Administration for Children and Families, Office on Family Violence Prevention and Services (OFVPS), that identifies, analyzes, and reports on existing services and programs most effective at supporting survivors from historically marginalized communities in exiting homelessness and maintaining housing.
7. Re-tool existing resources and create greater flexibility, within existing funding streams, toward use in building or rehabbing affordable permanent housing.
8. Ensure survivors have access to legal assistance.
9. Establish the Office of Gender-Based Violence Prevention at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the office of the Secretary at HUD.
10. Create an interagency survivor housing program housed at the Office on Family Violence Prevention and Services Office (OFVPS) at HHS ($50 million). 

Conclusion

Please read the full report for more information. If you are interested in joining STTARS’ National Workgroup or would like to receive training and technical assistance at this critical intersection of our shared work, please contact us at housing@niwrc.org.

1 LaPorte, Caroline B., The Violence Against Women Act Housing Provisions and Impacts to Indigenous Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence (2022) (accessed from https://www.niwrc.org/sites/default/files/VAWA%20Policy%20Paper.pdf).

2 LaPorte, Caroline B., Intimate Partner Violence in Tribal Communities: Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Framing (2021).