Domestic violence, stalking victims say program meant to protect them is dangerously flawed

PITTSBURGH — Domestic violence, stalking and human trafficking impact more than 12 million people in our country a year.

In Pennsylvania, there’s a program that aims to hide a victim’s address from a would-be attacker, but some say it has some dangerous flaws.

Walking down the street, in the grocery store, even at your job, you may never see or even notice the pain of these crime victims.

“You wake up every morning, am I going to die today, what can I do to survive.”

For this woman who we are not naming, the fight continues years after meeting a stranger. In each step, she never knows if it will be her last.

“For me, it just went from zero to hundred, my life changed, and my life became one of the worst stalking cases police say they’ve ever seen.”

She opens up about the daily fight to protect herself and her home.

“I knew he was problematic for about a year. I was so protective of my information, I was so protective of my address because I knew, my address was my life.”

But that address became public with one simple move. She voted. In 41 states, there are different versions of an address confidentiality program to protect these survivors.

In Pennsylvania, the program does protect your right to vote and rent a home, but the program falls short when it comes to actually owning a home.

The minute you close, deed in hand, your property records are public and now in the hands of the predator.

“We want to raise our families in homes, not apartments, we want to provide that stability that safety to everyone in our lives.”

So, is it an oversight and just a simple fix to a program that already exists? Or a hole that could be deadly for thousands of survivors?

That’s the question Channel 11′s Nicole Ford brought to Representative Emily Kinkead after she showed her the hole in our state’s program.

“It’s surprising to me, it seems like we should have fixed this a while ago. The idea that we went as far as protecting people’s rental addresses, but we can’t protect the home addresses, the homes they own that seems like a significant oversight,” Kinkead said.

The program exists, it’s funded. The fix is simply amending the categories by passing bills in the House and Senate. Something the state of Maryland did in 2019 when the same flaw was discovered. Kinkead said it truly is just that simple.

“I think the next step is I start circulating a co-sponsorship memo and try to get my colleagues to sign on to something to fix this, I’m ready to do it. I think this is something that is overdue.”

It’s an opportunity to help these survivors regain and reclaim control over their lives and live out a true American dream.

“You have to rethink what your dreams are, I used to have big career dreams. But now my dreams are to buy a house. To have a loving place for my family, to have peace.”

Because of Channel 11′s investigation, that co-sponsorship memo went live this week as Kinkead works to draft the language for the bill.

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