VAWA - Not Just for Section 8 Anymore...

Did you know that when VAWA was renewed in 2013, its applicability was expanded? Yes indeed. VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act, protects victims of stalking and domestic violence (whether or not they are women). The facts about domestic violence and stalking are alarming. Although women are disproportionately victims, men are not immune. 

According to the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence: · 

• Nearly one in five women and one in seventy-one men have been raped in their lifetime. ·

• Women are four more times more likely than men to be beaten, six times more likely to be slammed against something, and nine times more likely to be hurt by choking or suffocating.  

• One in six women nave been stalked during their lifetime; one in nineteen men have experienced stalking in their lifetime. 

Housing Programs covered by VAWA now include: 

• HOME Investment Partnerships program · 
• Section 202 supportive housing for the elderly (including PAC and PRAC) · 
• Section 236 Rental Program
• Section 811 supportive housing for people with disabilities
• Section 221(d)(3) Below Market Interest Rate (BMIR) Program
• HOPWA housing program
• HUD's McKinney-Vento homeless programs · 
• Low-Income Housing Tax Credit properties
• USDA Rural Housing properties 

What are the protections offered by VAWA? As of 2013, VAWA does the following: · 

• Prohibits eviction / termination due to a tenant's status as a survivor. Landlords must maintain survivor tenant confidentiality. Landlords must not deny assistance, tenancy, or occupancy rights based solely on criminal activity related to an act of domestic violence committed against them. · Includes victims of sexual assault in its protections, and ads the term "intimate partner" to the list of eligible relationships. This includes anyone living with the survivor and related to him by blood or marriage - spouse, parent. brother, sister, child, or anyone to whom the survivor stands in loco parentis

• Permits lease bifurcation in order to allow the abuser to be removed from the household without removing the victim. If the victim cannot establish eligibility, he or she must be given a reasonable amount of time in which to find new housing or establish eligibility under another covered housing program. · 

• Housing providers must provide a VAWA "notice of rights" at the time a person applies for housing, when a person is admitted as a tenant of a housing unit, and when a tenant is threatened with eviction or termination of housing benefits. 

• HUD is expected to issue guidance on what "notice of rights" and "reasonable time" mean at some future point. However, this does not mean that we should wait to provide the protections. VAWA is in force now, and we should act accordingly. Ensure that your Residents have signed the VAWA Lease Amendment (If your residents have not signed, you can obtain it here. They should sign it at their next Lease renewal. Each adult family member need only sign it once). 

In addition, please add the following document, now on the Compliance Blog, to your application packet: 

Notice of VAWA Protections 

VAWA forms are also on the Forms and Procedures page of this blog, in the Application Packet and Lease sections.