No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

While Hacskaylo was busy putting together Cornerstone, she also began looking for scattered site transitional housing; scattered sites are basically units that DASH has negotiated for with landlords to lease to their clients. In the hyper-expensive housing market that is Washington, D.C., these scattered sites are a constant source of need, and DASH has had to go farther and farther beyond the city limits to find affordable housing and willing partners. At the same time, with transitional housing all across the country now offering survivors a pathway to stability, Hacskaylo says the Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD) is moving away from transitional housing, claiming that it’s overly expensive for what it provides. Instead, HUD is moving toward what it calls “rapid re-housing,” getting domestic violence survivors in and out of a subsidized housing situation in just four or six months. Hacskaylo says for most people, this is simply not enough time. Often, they have significant debt or their credit has been ruined by their abuser, or they haven’t had a job in a long time. Sometimes they want to finish a degree or vocational training. At DASH, their rent is covered for two years. They can sometimes apply to extend that for another six months, and after that, DASH has a project to help with another two years of partially subsidized housing. And even then, Hacskaylo says, it’s sometimes not enough time.