If a woman is being abused, chances are she's not going to be able to move out on her own. About 20 percent of shelter beds are reserved for transitional housing, where women who've moved out of a dire emergency can pull their lives together and find permanent homes. But there's not nearly enough transitional space to meet the demand. As a result, emergency shelter space becomes transitional housing, too. Families can stay there for 90 days, with the possibility of a 45-day extension.
Shelters frequently grant additional extensions, keeping precious emergency beds occupied.
The families that can't get into domestic violence shelters have ended up in standard family shelters, which provide a place to sleep but don't have the counseling and classes available at domestic violence shelters. And safety is always a concern. Advocates also shudder at the idea that the bedraggled Emergency Assistance Unit, and not the Safe Horizon hotline, could become the gateway of first resort to domestic violence shelter. The city's Department of Homeless Services is under strict orders from the Giuliani administration to deny shelter to people who cannot prove a need, and sources say women arriving with stories of domestic violence are cut no slack. In one case, he says, a woman who had an order of protection against her abuser visited the EAU five times over the course of several weeks, her children in tow.