VAWA Protections: A Landlord Must Not Evict Based on History of Domestic Violence

If a tenant experiences or is threatened with domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, the landlord cannot use that as a basis for their eviction.

Here’s are protections provided by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): 

• Being threatened or victimized by violence cannot be a lease violation or a reason to end the subsidy.
• If a member of the tenant's household, a guest, or someone under the tenant's control commits the violence or abuse, the tenant's subsidy or tenancy shouldn’t end if the tenant or an immediate family member is the victim or threatened victim of the violence.
• Housing authorities and owners can change the lease to remove or evict anyone who commits violent criminal acts related to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, but they must also follow local laws regarding due process of eviction. The survivor and the person causing harm can be given separate housing arrangements. The housing authority or owner decides whether to evict the person causing harm without jeopardizing the survivor's housing.

But, housing authorities and owners can still evict a survivor if:

• There is a lease violation unrelated to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, as long as survivors of violence are not treated more strictly than other tenants.
• The housing authority can prove that allowing the tenant to stay would put other tenants or staff in immediate danger. This is a very difficult standard to meet because the danger must be real and immediate and one that could result in death or serious harm.

VAWA protects survivors of gender-based violence so that they won't lose their housing because of what a person harming them does.

To read about what a survivor needs to show the housing authorities to receive protection under VAWA, click here.