On behalf of Legal Momentum (which is the new name for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), I want to thank the City Council, especially the General Welfare and Women's Issues Committees, for re-introducing this important bill to ensure that women in New York City who are victimized by domestic and sexual violence are not re-victimized by landlords and other housing providers.
We know that the practice of housing discrimination against victims is widespread. For the past three years, Legal Momentum has provided legal assistance to many women who, like Clarabelle and Angela, have been denied housing just because they were victims of domestic violence; to women whose landlords or co-op boards have sought to remove them from their apartments just because they were beat up, called the police, or obtained protective orders against their abusers; and to women who could not get out of their leases when they had to flee their abusers. We have submitted for inclusion in the record a document providing housing discrimination testimonials from a number of victims, including the two who testified today, two others who were unable to come today, and from three other New York City residents whom Legal Momentum assisted. These are only a sampling of the stories out there; we continually hear from service providers about the seriousness of the housing discrimination problem. Indeed, as this Committee's report cites, a comprehensive study of 23 domestic violence shelters in Iowa a few years ago found that housing discrimination was one of the greatest barriers to obtaining housing for victims of violence.
If the Committee would indulge me for a few moments, I would like to highlight the stories of two women who had wanted to testify but could not be here today. The first is Karen, who has submitted a written statement to the Committee. Karen obtained a protective order against her husband last November which excluded him from her apartment. At the end of January, he broke into her apartment building and brutally attacked her in front of a security camera. She called the police, but when the police couldn't apprehend her attacker, they told her that she was in danger and should stay away from her apartment until he was caught. Karen fled to a shelter. Karen has a good job and a good tenant history, and she did not want to mess up her good record by ending up in housing court. But she could not afford to rent a new apartment and still pay rent on her old two-year lease. She approached us in February of this year for advice on how to get out of the prior lease. Unfortunately, without Intro 305, Karen is out of luck. Her landlord is holding her to the terms of her lease and has sued her in housing court.
The second story I want to highlight is that of the woman pseudonymously called Linda. A few years ago, Linda's husband assaulted her in their public housing apartment and was arrested. She got a protective order excluding him from the unit and responsibly informed the Housing Authority of the order. Soon afterward, she got a notice saying that she was being evicted, along with her husband, because of the assault. Linda went through a two-year ordeal fighting the eviction. She was lucky, because she had lawyers who were able to convince the Housing Authority to let her stay. But many women are not so lucky. And unless those women are in the rare situation where they can make out a sex discrimination case, they too will have no recourse until Intro 305 is passed.
Intro 305 will not only help victims like Karen, Linda, Clarabelle and Angela get housing, but it will also help them end the cycle of abuse. We know that the fear of retaliation from landlords prevents many victims from calling the police, reporting their abuse, and seeking protective orders. The lack of protection from housing discrimination therefore discourages victims from taking necessary steps to protect themselves from violence.
We also know that housing discrimination prevents many victims from leaving their abusers. A number of studies have found that "the best predictor of whether a woman [will] stay away from her abuser" is "her degree of economic independence." Victims who cannot find housing often return to their abusers. Others become homeless. We know that the majority of homeless women are or have been victims of domestic violence, and that the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors report consistently cites domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness. While housing discrimination is only one of several reasons for this, enacting Intro 305 will at least reduce the incidence of homelessness among domestic violence victims.
Before I conclude, I want to respond to one argument that has been raised against Intro 305 - that landlords should be entitled to exclude domestic violence victims in order to ensure the safety of other tenants. This objection is both unjustified and unjust. First, there is no support for the claim that domestic violence victims pose any serious risk to third parties. In the three years I have been working on this issue, I have never come across an incident of a third party tenant being injured by domestic violence, nor have any of the service providers I have spoken to. No studies show such a problem. That makes sense, because this concern reflects a misunderstanding of the dynamics of domestic violence. Domestic violence - as many psychologists and social scientists have shown - is a crime of control, and it is directed at a particular person whom the perpetrator seeks to control. Third parties are simply not part of the equation.
More importantly, this objection is unfair. Its logic implies that domestic violence victims should be excluded from all housing even though they have done nothing wrong. This is the logic of penalizing the victim, and its endpoint is a vast underclass of homeless victims. We do not want to live in a society that permits that.
And so Legal Momentum strongly urges the Council to pass this essential piece of legislation. Thank you.
