Residential Programs and Communal Living

This power and control wheel was created to illustrate how domestic violence shelters may inadvertently abuse power and control over survivors who seek services from them.

This guide is part of a shared goal between NRCDV, state coalitions, and individual programs to find a better way to welcome women and other domestic violence victims -- many of whom had every aspect of life controlled by their partners -- into shelter where they could experience autonomy despite the constraints of a communal living environment. The concept and conflict of having rules in shelter has been repeatedly recycled and re-silenced throughout the movement to end violence against women.

A program director reflects on how her program’s staff worked to pare down the shelter rules, rethinking what was necessary and reexamining their own investment in particular rules.

This page explores how to create shelter environments where survivors can reclaim their autonomy, and feel secure without excessive rules and punitive systems that echo the abuser’s rules.

This document provides general guidelines to keep in mind when crafting shelter rules, including a model set of rules structured in the form of rights and responsibilities.

Intended for use in domestic violence victim services, this guide was produced to provide domestic violence programs and agencies with a practical tool to review the accessibility of the agency and services offered for victims with disabilities.

This checklist will help domestic violence programs identify ways to increase access to services for survivors with a disability.

This handout facilitates creative thinking about changing physical environments in shelters so that potentially oppressive rules can be eliminated.

This brief document explains the concept of food insecurity: outlining its four dimensions (availability, access, utilization, and stability), explaining the two general types (chronic and transitory) based on duration, exploring the severity of the problem, and providing definitions of the related concepts of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.

With the approaching holiday season, questions may arise about how to appropriately respond to the food-related needs of survivors in shelter and how to manage excess food donations. This brief document offers guidance from the NRCDV Technical Assistance Team.

This page includes fact sheets about food safety for at-risk populations, including people with HIV/AIDS, pregnant women, older adults, and people with diabetes.

This page provides access to Federal information about best practices and procedures for food safety.