Photo Courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Mayor de Blasio and First Lady McCray last week ended Domestic Violence Awareness Month by helping to unveil the slate of new DV survivor policies.
By Forum Staff
The de Blasio administration, NYPD, and the City Council last week announced a package of policies aimed at protecting domestic violence survivors, their livelihoods, and their homes.
The new directives include Paid Safe Leave, which is legislation introduced by Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland (D-East Elmhurst) and Mayor Bill de Blasio that will allow survivors to take paid-leave from work to attend to immediate safety needs without fear of penalty. The City will also put housing lawyers in every Family Justice Center to “aggressively defend” survivors’ housing rights, and work with the NYPD to root out chronic offenders by instituting new practices to ensure law enforcement targets resources on the highest priority abusers and contacts every victim to ensure safety after an Order of Protection has been violated.
“Domestic violence is a public safety menace in every neighborhood, affecting every population, and it’s by confronting domestic violence that we will end the vicious cycle that perpetuates it,” de Blasio said. “We are sending a loud and clear message – we will not tolerate domestic violence, survivors have the City’s full support, and abusers must be held accountable. In the 21st century in the greatest city on earth, those who have already suffered at the hands of those they love should never have to choose between their safety and a paycheck or their home.”
Protecting Paychecks
According to the administration, victims of intimate-partner violence across the U.S. report an average of 7.2 days of work-related lost productivity per year. In 2014, de Blasio signed legislation expanding Paid Sick Leave to half-a-million more New Yorkers, ensuring that employees who work in NYC for more than 80 hours a year can earn up to 40 hours of sick leave each year to care for themselves or a family member. The Paid Safe Leave legislation will allow survivors to take advantage of that leave from work to attend to safety needs without fear of penalty from an employer.
Protecting Housing
According to the City, if a person has been abused, it guarantees them a lawyer to help protect their rights and their housing.
Beginning immediately, the administration noted, the City will protect housing for survivors and their families by placing housing lawyers in Family Justice Centers – the City’s resource and support centers for victims of domestic violence – in every borough to pursue every available option under law, including fighting to get the abuser off the lease, restricting an abuser’s access to a survivor’s home, transferring a lease from an abuser to a survivor, or end a lease without penalty if the survivor wants to move. 311, advocates, and the NYPD will refer survivors to the City’s Family Justice Centers and proactively mention housing as part of its script of resources.
Protecting from Repeat Abuse
Beginning immediately, according to the City Police Department, the NYPD will use a new prioritization tool to track chronic abuse to ensure that officers are targeting enforcement resources toward apprehending the riskiest abusers first. And in cases where an offender violates an Order of Protection, the NYPD will also reach out to victims to connect them to safety supports. In every domestic violence case, the NYPD will use precision policing to identify and target chronic domestic violence offenders, the agency said.
“We take domesticviolence seriously and will continue working within the department and across this city to prevent these types of crimes,” said Police Commissioner Jim O’Neill.
