City program tries to keep abuse victims in their homes by Nathan Weiser

In the end of October, the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender Based Violence announced the expansion of their Home+ program.

This helpful program is available to residents of the five boroughs and they sign up for it through the borough that they live in. This program provides free and confidential security resources to survivors of domestic and gender based violence who want to stay in their homes instead of going to a shelter.

According to Bea Hanson, who is the senior advisor for the mayor’s office to end domestic and gender based violence, there are two major aspects of this program.

The first part of the Home+ program that was launched in 2021 was the emergency response alarm system. The person in need of help will press a button and a call center will listen to see how things are.

The call center will then notify the designated person ,which could be a neighbor, a family member or law enforcement.

At the end of October, they expanded Home+ to being able to assess and provide helpful services around lock repair and lock replacement as well as window and door repair and replacement.

Lock repair and replacement will be able to happen within 24 hours. Regarding door repair. Fixing the door could happen within 24 hours and a replacement might take a few days.

The alarm system for the apartment would be mailed out so that would take a few days.

“Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home,” said Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence Commissioner Cecile Noel. “HOME+ strengthens the City’s efforts to increase safety and stability for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence and helps empower survivors who often suffer silently and fear seeking out the help they need.

To sign up to get the Home+ benefits interested people in need of help can call these various numbers based on the borough that they are in:

BRONX: Violence Intervention Program (VIP), 1-800-664-5880

BROOKLYN: HELP R.O.A.D.S./USA, 1-718-922-7980

MANHATTAN: STEPS at Rising Ground, 1-877-783-7794

QUEENS: Womankind, 1-888-888-7702 (call), 1-929-207-5907 (text only)

STATEN ISLAND: Seamen’s Society for Children & Families, 1-917-524-5819

The program will then talk to them about not just Home+ but other services as well to assess their level of risk. Other support can include counseling services and help with law enforcement if they want to report a crime.

Any survivor of domestic violence and of sexual assault is eligible for the Home+ program and it does not matter if they have worked with the Family Justice Center before.

“We think this program is going to be a game changer in the way we address domestic violence,” Hanson said. “It will enable survivors to stay in their home and for children to be able to stay in their same schools. And for the family to live in their community and retain those supports from family, friends and neighbors.”

Without this program, the two options that survivors had were going into a domestic violence or regular shelter or calling the police. The shelter is very disruptive.

“You have to leave your home, you are leaving your community and your kids need to change schools,” Hanson said. “Often when you go to a domestic violence shelter, housing is so difficult to get in the city, you may end up in the homeless shelter after that.”

Most of the time even with a domestic violence shelter there is a limit regarding how long one can stay. People might not be able to get permanent housing in the 180 days they are allowed to stay in the domestic violence shelter so then they will end up in the homeless system.

Many people do not feel safe or comfortable calling law enforcement. She added that the accused person being arrested does not necessarily mean the violence will stop.

“This program proves the extra support to help them stay safe in their home,” Hanson said.