Child-Based Services within Domestic Violence Transitional Housing Programs: Understanding Variations in Service Use across Program Structure and Location

Background and Purpose: More than 50% of domestic violence (DV) programs provide child-based support and advocacy. Housing remedies, including emergency shelter, rent aid, and vouchers, provide safety and stability to survivors and their children, yet housing needs are exacerbated by rent costs, a lack of childcare, and limited transportation access. Housing support is one of the most powerful and in-demand remedies to address DV with over 44,000 adult and child survivors served daily in DV agency housing programs. Domestic violence transitional housing (DVTH) is a supportive model providing a critical safety net of longer-term housing for survivors and their children beyond traditional emergency shelters. Little research has documented the types of services provided to children living in DVTH, despite child-based services being one of the most common types of services provided by DV agencies. The current study uses federal programmatic data from 2015-2020 to examine 1) The demographics of children housed in DVTH programs; 2) extent of support services used by DVTH-housed children; and 3) and variations across demographic, program housing characteristics, program service utilization rates, and program location (e.g. rural).

Methods: Five years of programmatic data were obtained through a public information request to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women for semi-annual report data for their funded DVTH programs. Individual program progress reports were the unit of analysis, limited to programs in the U.S. The final sample size for reports included for analysis was 1,868. Bivariate tests were used to examine differences in the demographics of children served, service utilization, and housing types between programs serving primarily rural clientele (greater than 50%) to programs serving non-rural clientele.

Results: Demographic differences exist among children accessing DVTH in rural and non-rural locations with rural programs serving a higher rate of children with disabilities (t(555.10)= -2.18, p<.001). Meanwhile, children with limited English language proficiency (t(1554.37)= 7.88, p<.001) and children identified as immigrants, refugees, or asylees (t(1453.56)= 7.22, p<.001) were more likely to receive services at non-rural programs. Rural programs served a greater percentage of children identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native (t(416.96)= -6.20, p<.001), Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (t(400.98)= -3.57, p<.001), and White (t(559.78)= -12.88, p<.001). Rural children used case management services at a significantly higher rate than children served at non-rural programs. Rural programs were more likely to utilize scattered (t(933.81) = -3.61, p<.001) and clustered (t(1216.39) = -3.57, p<.001) site housing units whereas non-rural programs had a greater percentage of housing units co-located with domestic violence shelters.

Conclusion: DVTH programs provide a critically important service to survivors and their children, and location is an important factor when evaluating the landscape of OVW-funded DVTH programs. Just under 25% of all children served by OVW-funded DVTH programs lived in rural areas. The substantial heterogeneity of program structure, client demographics, and support service utilization between rural and non-rural DVTH programs reflects the variety of survivors’ and their children’s needs based on geographic location and demonstrate the need for dynamic and flexible support to provide child-based services.