The National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) and the National Housing Law Project co-presented this webinar on the legal rights of immigrant survivors to access federally funded housing. For many survivors of domestic and sexual violence, the ability to secure decent, safe, and affordable housing is critical to long-term survival. Yet, immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence, human trafficking and other crimes often face obstacles in accessing federally subsidized housing and services that protect life or safety because of providers’ misunderstandings about immigration immigrant survivors’ eligibility. Emergency shelter and transitional housing programs are open to all survivors and immigrant homeless. Public and assisted housing is legally available to limited categories group of immigrant survivors. This webinar provides an overview of the rights of immigrant survivors to access federally funded housing programs, such as programs funded by HUD and USDA Rural Development. It includes a discussion of recent HUD authority confirming the rights of VAWA self-petitioners to access public and assisted housing and discusses the newly created computer verification system developed jointly by DHS and HUD for VAWA self-petitioner verification. Finally the webinar discusses the joint statements issued by HUD, HHS and DOJ restating and reconfirming the rights of survivors, regardless of their immigration status, to access emergency shelters and transitional housing that receive federal funds.
The webinar is available here
The power point slides can be viewed here
Overview of Access to Shelter and Transitional Housing for Immigrant Survivors
Overview of Access to Public and Assisted Housing for VAWA Self-Petitioners
Individual training materials
Shelter and Transitional Housing Fact Sheet (5.16.17)
Policy Links: Shelter and Transitional Housing Immigrant Victims (2.22.17)
The Law: Immigrants are Legally Eligible for Transitional Housing (February 22, 2017)
NHLP Chart Federally Assisted Housing and Immigrant Eligibility (Feb. 2017)
NHLP-Housing Covered by Section 214 (Feb. 2017)