For most of her life, Yenni Rivera found it difficult to ask for help. Raised in a working-class, Salvadoran, immigrant family in South Los Angeles, she often juggled three jobs and worked seven days a week. She never considered using public assistance programs like food stamps, and she rarely voiced her struggles, even to family.

That changed nine months after her son was born, when she fled an abusive husband and had nowhere else to go. With a black eye and a swollen lip, she remembers walking into an LA County Department of Public Social Services office in 2014. 

She remembers an exhausted employee informing her there were no appointments available. 

She remembers being told she would have to wait eight hours to speak with a social worker about the possibility of getting into a domestic violence shelter or temporary hotel room.

She remembers there were no domestic violence shelter spaces available for her and her baby that day. 

Instead, the county’s social services department supplied her with a six-week voucher for a hotel room in Jefferson Park. After the voucher expired, she and her son spent the next five years sleeping on a sofa and loveseat in the living room of her parents’ home.

“That’s how homelessness and DV interlaps,” said Rivera. “If you don’t have a family member that can take you in, if you don’t have a friend that can take you in, you’re going to end up part of the [homeless services] system.” 

Rivera’s story illustrates an often overlooked crisis in LA: domestic violence as a major driver of homelessness. Across California, one in five women who become homeless fled their homes to escape violence and escalating abuse by an intimate partner. In LA, the numbers are starker: 44 percent of unhoused women surveyed in 2023 by the Urban Institute reported domestic violence as the primary cause of their homelessness.

“LA’s survivor services system has been underfunded and disconnected from other mainstream services for decades,” said LA City Councilmember Katy Yarovslavsky. “The fact that, in a city of nearly 4 million people, only 10 percent of survivors who call seeking shelter can get a bed is unacceptable.”

Mental health, substance abuse, and economic hardship dominate discussions about homelessness. But state and local policymakers are beginning to understand that to solve the homeless crisis, they must incorporate domestic violence support into the homeless services system and, vice versa, permanent housing into the services systems for domestic violence survivors.

“If you are living in a domestic violence situation, you are homeless because you don’t have a safe and secure place to live,” said Jennifer Gaeta, executive director at nonprofit LA House of Ruth. “It’s a crisis. We should be ashamed.” 

The statistics only hint at the complex relationship between domestic violence and homelessness. 

For many survivors, the path from abuse to housing instability is paved with impossible choices and bureaucratic obstacles. Those who flee often face a cruel irony. Escaping violence can lead to living situations that make survivors vulnerable to further abuse. And while both domestic violence services and homeless services exist in LA, the systems rarely work together effectively to help survivors find stability and safety.

These intertwined crises exact a staggering toll on individual survivors and society. A recent Tulane University study found that intimate partner violence costs California nearly $74 billion a year in health care, criminal justice, and lost productivity and income — equal to about 2 percent of the state’s GDP. 

Now working to help others, Rivera sees her experience as evidence that anyone can be blindsided by domestic violence and housing insecurity.

“Suddenly you realize ‘I need to escape. I’m not safe here anymore,’” Rivera said.  “What do you do when that happens? If we don’t care and we don’t change and improve the system, when we need the system, it’s going to be broken.” 

4,000 survivors and only 567 shelter beds

Survivors seeking help often encounter a system ill-equipped to meet their needs. There are only 104 domestic violence shelters in California. In a recent one-year period spanning 2021-2022, these institutions served 13,000 people but had to turn down another 15,000 requests for shelter, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. 

Just 5 percent of unhoused Californians who fled domestic violence spent most of their nights in a domestic violence shelter, according to a statewide study. Those who do stay in shelters are more likely to use the mainstream homeless shelter system.

In the city of LA, there are about 4,000 people who are homeless because they fled domestic violence, but only 17 domestic violence shelters — which provide a total of only 567 beds, according to LA’s Community Investment for Families Department.

Of the nearly 16,000 people in LA who called domestic violence hotlines last year looking for shelter, only 10 percent were able to access a safe bed, according to the department. 

“The unmet need is tremendously high,” said Krista Colon with the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. “The DV shelters work as hard as they can to serve as many people as they can, but they cannot do it alone. And for survivors reaching out for housing and services, there should be no wrong door.”

Credit scores and child care

Financial conditions also often prevent domestic violence survivors from getting help. At Jenesse Center, Stephanie Grudberg was able to offer permanent housing to just one quarter of the families seeking it last year. Many clients don’t meet eligibility requirements for apartment units due to previous evictions, unstable income, or poor credit history, she said. 

The median monthly household income of unhoused Californians who experienced domestic violence in the months prior to homelessness was $1,000, according to the UC San Francisco study — well below the state’s median rent for a one-bedroom apartment. 

“Every client I deal with has credit issues, whether they realize it or not,” said Grudberg. “Whether it’s a result of intentional financial manipulation by their abuser or because the system has abused them after the fact.”

Grudberg fled an abusive marriage after enduring a miscarriage in 2014. She had already lined up resources for herself and her child, but those services were unavailable to her once she lost the baby.

“I see that sort of thing now with clients,” Grudberg said. “We have pregnant moms who can’t get funding for a two-bedroom house that they’re going to need in four months after they give birth because the baby’s not born yet.”

While sleeping in her parents’ living room, Rivera tried to return to her job as a sales associate for a major hotel chain, but the cost of child care complicated her plans. LA County’s Department of Social Services offered monthly subsidies of more than $800, but it would take 10 months for the department to issue the money. Without the savings to pay for child care, Rivera quit her job to care for her son.

“When you fall into poverty, when you fall into homelessness, when you fall into DV, you’re not just at zero, but you end up at less than zero because you start owing people money,” said Rivera. 

Ten months later, when the subsidy came through, she started looking for a new job, but soon learned that if she became employed full-time, she would no longer qualify for that child care assistance.

LA County Department of Public Social Services assistant director Nick Ippolito said confidentiality laws prevent the department from commenting on the specifics of Yenni’s story, but he noted that the department’s policies related to domestic violence victims have changed since 2014 to include new screening tools and referrals to domestic violence service providers.

He also said the CalWorks child care program has been updated and now allows subsidy assistance to continue for up to two years after a participant stops receiving cash aid.

Higher barriers for immigrants

The barriers are even higher for immigrant and asylum-seeking survivors coming to LA. Barbara Kappos, executive director of the East LA Women’s Center, said many of these survivors never come forward at all.

“They’re afraid to access services,” she said. They’re afraid of deportation. They’re afraid their children are going to be taken away.”

There are also language barriers and obstacles to securing work and steady income. Most basic public assistance is out of reach. 

Many survivors born outside of the US don’t have access to welfare funds like CalWORKs, which provides temporary financial assistance for housing, food, utilities, clothing, and medical care, according to Kappos. “So that means no income at all,” she said.

‘Women are opting to go unsheltered on the street’

Even for those who can access the shelter system, safety concerns create yet another hurdle. In a 2022 needs assessment conducted by the Downtown Women’s Center, more than half of all women surveyed said they felt unsafe accessing or using shelters. And only 5 percent reported facing no obstacles when trying to use shelters. Cisgender women were significantly more likely to report no barriers than transgender women or nonbinary people.

“Sometimes the shelter options that are available are not at all safe,” said DWC’s Emily Goodburn. “So women are opting to be unsheltered on the street as opposed to going to congregate shelter or someplace else they might be in danger.”

According to the UCSF statewide study, 60 percent of unhoused survivors who fled domestic violence spent most nights sleeping in cars, tents, or makeshift shelters outside — where they remain vulnerable to violence. Fifteen percent of all cisgender women experienced violence while homeless. Among those who had reported violence prior to becoming homeless, that rate jumped to 40 percent.

Of the eight survivors interviewed for this story, most said they would prefer to have their own hotel room or subsidized private apartment. But the programs that provide these resources are limited and elusive.

Ruth (a pseudonym used to protect her safety) prefers to live in a converted plastic children’s playhouse by the LA River rather than enter the shelter system. She escaped an abusive spouse in another state and has spent the past eight years trying to navigate LA’s maze-like homeless services system in search of permanent housing.

At first, Ruth slept for a while on the floor of the chapel at the Union Rescue Mission, alongside dozens of other people. She said hygiene was a problem and illnesses spread easily. A spokesperson for Union Rescue Mission said all guests are provided with clean clothing and hygiene kits and the organization stopped using its chapel as an overflow space several years after Ruth’s experience. 

“During that time, we had so many families and individuals coming to our doors for shelter. We provided blow-up mattresses because we ran out of cots and space. We had to use our chapel as the overflow from the overflow,” said spokesperson Kitty Davis-Walker. “Our mission model at the time and still is to this today: We will never turn away a mom with children, a dad with children, two parent families and single ladies.” 

Ruth then found her way to a women’s bridge housing program at the Midnight Mission shelter. For a month, she slept in a crowded dorm with 39 other women, most of them also survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault. After graduating from that program, she got a spot in a shared housing facility in South LA with 19 roommates. 

Ruth says she was threatened with eviction, panicked, and moved under a bridge in the San Fernando Valley, not far from where she stays today. 

“I knocked on every door, called every phone number, and followed through, because I felt like my life depended on it,” Ruth said. “And then I started realizing that I gotta figure something else out, and I ended up coming out here.” 

For safety, Ruth has added a metal deadbolt to the doorframe of her 25-square foot plastic dwelling. Two canisters of pepper spray hang from her right wrist, attached by velcro straps. 

In her first year living outside, Ruth’s living space was ‘swept’ three times by sanitation workers and local authorities. Each time, she was forced to move temporarily, many of her belongings were taken, and she was charged a $237 fine. Today, Ruth says she’s amassed $3,000 in debt from those citations, which were sent to collections.

For some survivors of domestic violence, that lack of control associated with living outside mirrors the dynamics of an abusive relationship. 

“Sweeps are domestic violence,” said Ruth. “I mean, someone’s coming to you and taking everything that you own. It’s just like what happens in relationships where there’s a money imbalance or a power imbalance. Every disagreement is potential displacement.” 

Six solutions to break the cycle

While the challenges are complex, advocates and survivors have identified clear paths forward. Below are six key strategies they say could help break the cycle between domestic violence and homelessness.

1. Immediate housing — without any preconditions

Through a service-delivery model known as ‘Domestic Violence Housing First,’ organizations like the Downtown Women’s Center are providing survivors with immediate housing without any preconditions. California service providers first piloted the approach in 2016, and 93% of clients surveyed said they were able to either remain in their home or secure safe housing. Last year, state grants for the initiative provided about $50 million to 90 organizations across California, which in turn provided permanent housing to nearly 7,000 people.

A recent study found that the survivors receiving Housing First services in Washington State experienced significantly greater improvements in housing stability, safety, and mental health over two years than those receiving traditional domestic violence services like support groups, counseling, legal advocacy, and referrals.

The city of LA began operating its own Survivors First housing initiative in 2021, administered by the Community Investment for Families Department. It’s designed for unhoused women with children. The program served 1,087 people last budget year and had a 96% success rate in keeping clients safely housed, according to the department.

This month, LA City Council voted to expand the program, add $3 million in funding for domestic violence services, increase domestic violence shelter capacity by 13%, and create a task force to remove firearms from abusers and strengthen restraining order enforcement

“By expanding shelter capacity and funding programs like Survivors First — which pairs housing services with financial assistance … we’re making sure fewer survivors have to choose between an abusive home and the streets,” said council member Yarovslavsky, who proposed the measures. “These efforts will help more unhoused survivors transition into stable housing and rebuild their lives.”

2. Cash for rent, car repairs, childcare — and whatever else survivors needs

Organizations using Domestic Violence Housing First funding can offer flexible financial assistance directly to clients. Unlike most housing assistance programs, this one goes well beyond just helping with rent payments. It can include security deposits, car repairs, childcare costs, job training — anything that might help clients stay in their homes or move into new ones.

“It is so comprehensive,” said Krista Colon with the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. “One of the things I’ve heard over and over from advocates is that this is the money that lets them say yes, where so often their funding is restricted and narrowly-tailored. This is the money where when survivors have a need, they can say yes.” 

In a recent statewide study by UC San Francisco, more than 80% of women victimized by intimate partner violence in the six months prior to homelessness believed that a lump-sum payment would have helped them avoid becoming homeless.

“One of the things that’s missing is that most of the public funding sources have time limits — and the human psyche needs to heal in a timeframe that fits them,” said Jennifer Gaeta of LA House of Ruth. “We need to be allowed to make more individual choices about how long a person can stay in shelter or stay in permanent housing with assistance. So, the flexible funding is essential and I don’t see a lot of it.”

3. Meeting survivors where they are

A key aspect of the Domestic Violence Housing First approach is “mobile advocacy.” Instead of requiring clients to come into an office, advocates work out in the community, meeting survivors where they are. This could be at the survivor’s home, at a park, in a coffee shop — whatever place is safe and convenient for them. 

The method helps survivors seeking help to encounter fewer barriers — things like finding transportation, hiring childcare, or simply finding time to reach out for assistance. This kind of collaborative advocacy requires more time and effort on the part of providers, and it often includes accompanying survivors to housing, employment, and child welfare appointments.

These efforts aim to be “trauma-informed,” an approach that seeks to recognize how survivors are affected by trauma and to avoid retraumatization. 

“Rather than asking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ it’s about understanding what happened, and creating a safe space for people to heal from that trauma,” said Emily Goodburn, Downtown Women’s Center’s director of DV Housing. “That needs to be informed based on conversations with that individual, because it is such a unique experience.” 

4. Protecting VOCA funding

Funding remains a persistent challenge. Federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) dollars that support Domestic Violence Housing First have fluctuated, plummeting from $397 million in 2018 to $87 million last year in California. State officials provided stop-gap funding last year, but the long-term sustainability of promising programs is uncertain.

The federal VOCA fund has received some significant deposits in recent months and is in a much stronger place. But Congressional budget negotiations are ongoing and the amount of funding to be allocated to VOCA hasn’t been decided yet. 

Advocates worry the new administration and Republican congressional leadership’s focus on cutting government spending could result in cuts to domestic violence services.

“While we continue to advocate for this critical funding and wait to see what budget decisions will be made, we know that any reductions in funding will leave survivors with fewer resources and support during the time when they need it most,” said Colon. 

5. Better coordination between systems

Today, the homeless services system and domestic violence services operate largely in silos, speaking different languages and operating under different rules.

“As long as silos exist, this system will not work,” said Rivera, who now works as a family system coordinator for the LA Homeless Services Authority. “You will keep encountering greater numbers of homeless individuals on the street, and we’re not going to fix the problem.”

One major difference between the two systems is their approach to collecting and managing big data. LA’s homeless service providers use a massive database to track clients and refer them to services, but federal law prevents domestic violence organizations from putting survivors’ personally-identifying information into any kind of centralized database. While this privacy requirement protects survivors from abusers, it has contributed to their needs being underreported and neglected in policy decisions.

In 2022, California passed the HELP Act, legislation that, for the first time, requires cities receiving state homelessness funding to develop services and programs tailored to the unique needs of domestic violence survivors. The law, which proponents say will make the state a national leader in supporting unhoused women, also requires the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to measure progress toward those goals.

“We need to make sure that homeless service providers know how to refer people to domestic violence shelters, and that domestic violence programs know how to work within the rest of the homelessness system,” said Krista Colon of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.

6. Involving survivors in creating solutions

Perhaps most importantly, survivors themselves are increasingly shaping policy solutions. Rivera’s advocacy with Parent Voices of California led to changes in childcare subsidy policies. Ruth publishes original reporting on homeless issues and regularly testifies at public meetings. Cato now works as a survivor advocate in Skid Row.

“Survivors are probably the best advocates because they lived it firsthand and they know everything that you’re going through,” said Cato. “Some things are just unspoken.”

To truly help people in her situation get the help they need wherever they are, Ruth also suggests doing away with so-called “good neighbor policies” for homeless shelters — operating agreements that ban someone in need from simply walking up to a shelter door and receiving services.

Ruth is especially nervous about the US Supreme Court’s Grant’s Pass ruling this summer, which effectively criminalizes sleeping outside. Following the ruling, the National Network to End Domestic Violence warned of its likely impact on survivors.

“Gender-based violence is a cause and consequence of homelessness, and this ruling will further trap people who are homeless, including survivors, in cycles of poverty and housing insecurity,” the nonprofit wrote in a statement. “Handcuffs and fines will not protect survivors and their families from violence, trauma, or their perpetrators.”

This reporting was supported by the Blue Shield of California Foundation. Additional reporting by Claudia Boyd-Barrett. Photography by Alisha Jucevic for Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Some sources were compensated for the time they spent being interviewed or photographed.