The Housing First model has been shown to be a highly effective approach to achieving permanent housing for chronically homeless individuals with serious mental illness and chemical dependency. There are numerous components of the model that lend themselves toward achieving similar goals for homeless domestic violence (DV) survivors and their children. This article describes the commonalities between the Housing First model and the tenets of DV victim advocacy work and explores how Housing First can be adapted to effectively achieve safe and stable housing for DV survivors and their children.

This checklist, compiled by the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, is for domestic violence programs to assess their progress toward implementing the Domestic Violence Housing First approach, and to identify areas for improvement.