Elizabeth Schlitt testifies on need to protect NYCHA EHV households and domestic violence survivors
Elizabeth Schlitt, a domestic violence survivor, asks the council to protect NYCHA EHV households with a CityFHEPS lifeline. She describes how abusers isolate survivors and says housing protection must be fast to keep survivors safe.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to me.
A little bit of a different point of view.
I'm here today to ask you to protect NYCHA EHV households to carve out a CityFAPS lifeline for these vulnerable houses before they are pushed back towards homelessness.
This is very important for the safety and security of many people, including survivors of domestic violence.
I myself am a survivor of domestic violence and know how important this program is in keeping survivors of abuse safe and fast.
When escaping an abusive relationship, it's not as simple as just leaving.
The abuse is not just physical, but emotional and psychological.
It's not just escaping an apartment or a house, but an entire ecosystem that an abuser has created to keep you trapped.
Adding kids to that makes it even more dangerous to escape without a getaway plan.
NICHA EHV helps make a getaway plan a reality.
The hardest thing I have ever had to do in my entire life was to escape my abuser.
Between the constant gaslighting and my brain locking away the worst of...
What went on until I could get away safe made it near impossible to see a full picture of what was possible in getting safe, including programs like this.
In my situation, every
One that my abuser kept around us, kept reaffirming that they were a great person.
Friends, family, anyone that saw different seemed to vanish.
No idea why.
The whole world he created around us kept me trapped.
If I tried to confide in anyone,
I was ignored.
They looked at me like I was exaggerating.
I stayed trapped in this situation until things got worse and my life was threatened.
I had nowhere to go at the time.
Not that anyone would have believed me.
Was forced to make a plan and...
Time expired.
You can continue.
It took years for me to get safe, even after he tried to end my life.
After he tried to end my life.
If I had known about this program, it would have spared me years of torture and torment trying to find a way out of my situation.
When you have nowhere to go,
or all the places you could go are places your abuser can find you, the likelihood of surviving an escape is minimal.
Even with calling the cops in a situation, oftentimes an abuser ends up right back in the house.
Very little is done to keep a survivor safe.
Intimate or former intimate partners make up 63% of the killers.
in female homicide cases and 90% of people they know.
What all this means is that survivors of abuse need housing protection and fast.
When someone needs help, you help them.
Any great society helps those in need, and this is something that people need, and they need it immediately.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you so much for your testimony.