Domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness in women — and it’s also potentially the most overlooked.
Nearly four in 10 domestic violence victims experience homelessness, and nine in 10 homeless women have endured severe physical or sexual violence at some point. Yet domestic violence, whether intimate partner violence or childhood sexual abuse, is largely neglected in mainstream conversations about the unhoused.
According to NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCCADV) Director of Health and Housing Cassandra Rowe, if someone doesn’t work in domestic violence prevention, they’re likely unaware of its strong link to housing insecurity.
Organizations like the NCCADV are trying to educate the public about this connection, which the statewide affordable housing crisis has exacerbated, said Rowe. The National Network to End Domestic Violence’s annual survey found that 58% of unmet service requests involved shelter and housing.
Rowe coordinates the Housing and Urban Development-funded (HUD) Safe at Home program, a rapid rehousing initiative serving 72 rural counties through 20 local agencies, including pilots this year at Jackson County’s Center for Domestic Peace (CDP) and REACH of Haywood County.
CEO Sara Vogel said REACH received $110,000 for the Safe at Home program in early 2026, which has gotten over a dozen people into housing.
“We pay for people’s rent, and it really is an amazing stabilizer in a time when you know when someone leaves and they’re trying to pick up the pieces,” she said of the program, adding that they share clients with CDP.
Through REACH, Safe at Home also assists with utility deposits, connection costs, and minor car repairs.
CDP CEO Thom Brooks described the financial obligation as a “gradual build-up” for the survivor. Safe at Home in Jackson County has supported 16 families this year.
“They may be needing to secure employment and just get their lives back on track and get on their feet. So, it’s a little bit of breathing space for that,” he said.
Domestic violence victims are already often at a housing disadvantage, as their abuser, through various mechanisms from budget control to property destruction, may have impacted things like workplace performance, eviction history, and credit score. Rowe explained financial abuse is one of the most common forms of domestic violence and can impact one’s life for years to come.
“All of this together, it affects the survivor’s future earnings capacity as well as their ability to be able to find a lease,” said Rowe, citing proof of income.
The other problem
A lack of affordable housing is accompanied by a weakening social safety net directly caused by federal policy.
One proposed HUD rule change would roll back equal access protections to federally funded housing programs based on gender identity and sexual orientation, increasing barriers for LGBTQ+ survivors. Another eliminates Civil Rights Act of 1964 anti-discrimination clauses in HUD housing, which myriad organizations from consumer advocacy to civil rights to housing justice argue will disproportionately harm communities of color, people with disabilities, and domestic abuse survivors.
HUD is moving from its previous model, which funded permanent housing — like Safe at Home — to one that prioritizes transitional housing.
“There are different kinds of permanent housing programs, but the Safe at Home program, that’s defined as getting people experiencing homelessness into permanent affordable housing quickly and providing rental assistance and supportive services for … up to 24 months,” Rowe explained, adding that the lease is signed in the survivor’s name. They can renew it beyond the program’s duration so long as they make full monthly payments. It aims to help them maintain community-centered, long-term affordable housing. Transitional housing, on the other hand, is only for a specific duration and often doesn’t involve ties to a community. In the end, a family must move out, regardless of their ability to pay or renew a lease themselves.
“Transitional housing certainly can be an important option for folks, including survivors,” said Rowe, positing the example of a survivor with limited independent living experience.
“They (might) need something in-between shelter and moving into their own home, and it’s great to have that option, especially in the context of affordable housing crisis where we don’t have enough units to get folks into,” she explained. “But it is not the right option for everyone.”
Vogel and others at REACH are looking forward to sharing the results of the Safe at Home pilot program and potentially expanding it with increased NCCADV funding.
“The hope is that they will give us more money the next year because there’s a need,” said Vogel.
But according to Rowe, if the proposed change takes effect in 2028, “funding would be stripped away from [Safe at Home] and be dedicated to a more transitional housing model.”
Pre-Trump, HUD employed an evidence-based housing-first philosophy: people should be placed in stable housing before things like substance abuse are confronted.
Research has consistently shown housing-first programs are significantly more effective than treatment first. A Berkeley study of 300,000 unhoused veterans with mental illness found the former “significantly reduces long-term mortality” while the latter has “minimal long-term health effects.”
Even among individuals needing significant intervention, over 80% were still housed after a year with the housing-first model. But in 2025, HUD’s philosophy changed.
“Under [the Trump] administration, they have eliminated the housing first approach,” Rowe explained.
In its place is the treatment-first model, which requires 12-18 months of recorded abstinence and full-time employment above minimum wage — an approach housing advocates, including Rowe, say is not only ineffective but also undermines individual agency.
“There are many attempts to make access to housing contingent upon participation in these services — which, in the case of domestic violence survivors, we would consider that to be coercive in replicating those controlling dynamics that people have already endured in their abusive relationships,” she said, adding that treatment-first conflicts with certain laws shelters must follow that prohibit this approach, like the Violence Against Women Act.
Rowe said, luckily, Safe at Home has safeguards in place that let them opt out of participating in service-contingent housing. But other housing programs might not have that option, she said, and the mandate scares marginalized folks from reaching out.
“If people fear for their safety from the service providers, or if they fear that the government is going to have access to the service providers’ records, they’re not going to seek services, and they’re going to remain in dangerous situations,” she explained.
Already, organizations receiving HUD funding cannot “frame domestic violence or sexual assault as systemic social justice issues rather than criminal offenses,” “discourage collaboration with law enforcement,” or “prioritize illegal aliens over U.S. citizens,” reported the 19th News.
Rowe said these restrictions — especially the first, which places blame entirely on an individual — enable the government to refuse its duty to societal welfare.
“I think that it has the effect of eliminating the responsibility of both our society and our federal, state, and local governments for creating programs that help protect people, that create safe communities, and that change the toxic, violent, misogynistic culture that we live in,” she said.
She mentioned mass incarceration as a reflection of faulting the individual entirely. While people do cause immense harm that warrants consequences, said Rowe, extreme punishment often reinforces cycles of violence, especially in communities of color.
Rowe added that nationwide wealth disparity is growing while the federal government strips itself of fundamental responsibilities: The rich are getting richer and the poor can afford less.
Vogel noted that societal financial trajectory directly impacts partner violence.
“Anytime there is a dip in the economy, there’s going to be an uptick in domestic violence. When you add stress, especially financial stress … it’s no surprise that violence goes up because tensions are higher,” she said.
The final problem
Just as domestic violence causes homelessness, a lack of affordable housing also exacerbates domestic violence. Sometimes it impacts someone’s ability to leave their abuser.
“It’s often without access to affordable housing or the means to pay for it [that] people will stay, because what’s the other option?” said Vogel.
In other instances, victims who’ve already fled cannot find housing and return to their abuser, trading one need for another.
“[No access to affordable housing] results in return to abuse because, if given the choice of living on the street or living in your car, particularly if there are children involved, and returning to an abusive partner and living in a home, it’s pretty reasonable for somebody to make that (latter) choice,” said Rowe.
Those leaving unsafe housing situations often do bring their children; in North Carolina, the largest population of housing insecure/homeless domestic violence victims are aged 25-59, while the second largest are aged 0-12.
Survivors also turn to shelters when they have this option. Vogel said REACH’s shelter, Laura’s Place, has a maximum stay of 90 days.
“The idea being, in three months, we will help you: What is the next step?” she told The Smoky Mountain News.
But when Vogel began working at REACH, the average stay was 100-110 nights. That’s what prompted the need for Safe at Home.
Shelter Manager Laura Boone has been at REACH for four years and said it typically took guests more than three months to get back on their feet — even before Mountain Projects, which serves Haywood and Jackson counties, froze its Section 8 vouchers in 2024 due to a federal funding shortfall. The most recent average stay was four to five months.
Mountain Projects reopened its Section 8 waitlist in September of this year.
Shelters mirror this trend statewide: Facilities without stay limits are retaining guests for up to a year, rather than the previously typical 1-2 months.
Rowe said while long-term shelter living is destabilizing, it’s the preferred alternative to homelessness amid rising inflation, expensive housing stock, and a bleak job market. However, it decreases the number of available beds.
Plus, resources aren’t equally distributed across counties, which strains shelters and hurts survivors.
“Especially in the last few years, we have had several domestic violence agencies and shelters across the state close down or have to severely limit their services. There are counties across the state that don’t have their own dedicated shelter, and there are some agencies with shelter that serve multiple counties, which, as you can imagine, limits their capacity,” said Rowe.
The CDP is nearly ready to open the doors of its new shelter, which can serve 27 individuals, and if necessary, several more. Brooks said Jackson County hasn’t had a domestic violence shelter for the past 18 years. The shelter will allow CDP to house folks in their own community for up to 90 days on an emergency basis.
“Not having a local shelter has placed a strain, I think, on survivors in Jackson County who are seeking shelter. We’ve still worked over these past years to find that for folks. Most often, it’s at a neighboring county’s shelter,” said Brooks, adding that if a partner shelter hasn’t been an option, they’ll put people up for several nights in hotel rooms.
More beds are necessary, as North Carolina in 2026 lacks about 215,000 units to meet the housing needs of extremely low-income renting households. Moreover, NC homelessness in 2024- 2025 increased proportionally more than in any other state. While 3.3% fewer unhoused people were counted nationwide, the state’s population ballooned by 33.4%. The point-in-time counts show a slight decrease in homeless domestic violence victims from the year prior, bur homeless/housing insecure individuals accounted for a little over 15% of those seeking services in 2024-2025, up from 6% in 2020-2021. The rate of LGBTQ+ victims accessing help statewide increased 87% from 2020 to 2023, a significant margin.
Vogel said Haywood County, a tourist destination with no short-term rental ordinances, has an abundance of second homes used for these purposes, resulting in limited housing supply, increased demand, and higher prices. But she said that because those units often sit vacant for much of the year, it could be worth talking to owners about their value as a rapid rehousing option.
“We as an organization need to work with landlords to educate them on the benefits of working with Safe at Home,” she said.
Rowe told SMN that one challenge NCCADV often faces when coordinating rapid rehousing is income source discrimination, which state law doesn’t prohibit. As a result, landlords are hesitant to work with rental assistance programs, from Safe at Home to Section 8, she noted.
“There’s a lot of concerns among landlords that somebody who is experiencing domestic violence or who is a survivor of domestic violence will cause trouble at their properties. That their abuser will coming around. That the cops will be called,” she explained.
Boone said typically, Safe at Home participants already have a protective order in place enabling them to call 9-1-1 if their abuser arrives at their property. She said she also encourages clients to generally refrain from telling others where they’re living, especially in small towns, “where everybody knows everybody.”
Safe at Home is also grounded in the expectation that the client doesn’t go back to their abuser. While survivors sometimes leave the shelter and move their abusive partner in, if a Safe at Home client makes that decision, the program cuts ties permanently.
“We always let them know from before we ever sign paperwork, before we ever let them sign a lease: ‘If your abuser moves in, you’re off the program immediately. Funds will stop, communication will stop,’” Boone said, adding that program staff coordinate monthly in-home visitations to provide support and ensure an adequate living situation.
Realistically, however, sometimes landlord incentives, for which the grant carves out funding, are the best way to attract potential lessors, she said. That could look like a double security deposit to ensure that, even if a situation were to go awry, a landlord wouldn’t lose their money.