Chair Hudson questions DHS on DV survivor shelter safety

Okay, thank you.

When DV survivors seek shelter, how does DHS ensure that they're sent to a safe housing situation?

Thank you for the question.

First and foremost, when somebody comes into DHS, we are doing a domestic violence screening.

So somebody doesn't have to necessarily state that, but through our assessment process, we may be referring the person who comes in or the family to HRA's NOVA, No Violence Again program.

And they're really assessing criteria and eligibility for placement into a domestic violence shelter.

And what they're doing is making sure that if there is a parent DV and they cannot take this household in due to capacity constraints or the size of the family doesn't meet the available units in a DV

shelter, that they're making DHS placements aware.

And what happens there is if there is a parent DV, we are going to separate the alleged abuser from the alleged victim if the household is coming together.

We will refer the alleged abuser to the single adult side while we place the remaining household.

If this is an instance of DV and there is a parent DV, but it's not within household members, we're making sure that we follow NOVA's recommendations.

for areas of exclusion, and those tend to be specific addresses or zip codes.

Okay, thank you.