Everyone knows New York has a housing crisis. But I’ve learned that the word “crisis” means something very different depending on what you’ve lived through and the struggles that you’re facing right now.

I used to live with a man who abused me in every way — emotionally, psychologically, and physically. He did the same to my children. He used me to get what he wanted, and it was intolerable. My children and I are survivors of domestic violence.

Thankfully, we escaped. With the help of the federal Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program, I found a decent home where my children and I are free from abuse. The program connected us to New Destiny, which helped me with the apartment search and the paperwork — for survivors like me, it was a lifesaver. My children finally know what it’s like to have a home free from violence.

Now, the voucher that gave us security is the reason we can’t sleep. The federal government announced that the program ran out of funding years ahead of schedule. Our lease is up in September, and our landlord won’t renew it.

The fear I feel compels me to tell the plain truth: more than 2,200 families, who will be left with nothing when our vouchers expire, are going to become homeless this fall unless Mayor Mamdani creates a CityFHEPS lifeline. That’s the only way to keep us safely housed and to stop a preventable surge in family homelessness.

EHVs were supposed to be funded through 2030. Yet the federal government announced the money had run out years early, making it clear it doesn’t plan to add more. More than 40,000 households nationwide are still receiving that assistance, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s own monthly data. All of them are now at risk.

Congress is weighing language that would require HUD to issue replacement vouchers. But HUD has spent this year declining to spend money Congress already appropriated. I can’t ask my children to wait on a “maybe.”

NYCHA administers close to 4,800 EHVs, including mine. To its credit, it has found some resources: about 700 apartments in buildings converted through its PACT program, and about 1,700 coupons from another rental assistance program. But that covers barely half of us, and public housing isn’t on the table. More than 2,200 households are in limbo.

Every week that goes by without an offer, I feel less certain that my family will be one of the “lucky ones.” And a PACT apartment would mean moving with no financial support. Meanwhile, landlords are already evicting tenants with expiring vouchers.

As the Bronx district attorney recently said in a letter to the mayor, “stable housing is public safety.” That leaves one solution for keeping survivors safe from abuse: making CityFHEPS available to us. With CityFHEPS, families with EHVs, including survivors, would be able to stay in the homes we’ve worked so hard to rebuild, in the schools and neighborhoods our children have settled into. The mayor has the power to do this — his administration can extend eligibility to NYCHA EHV households tomorrow. The only obstacle is political will.

During his campaign, Mayor Mamdani promised solutions for tenants like us. We needed one in March, when NYCHA first told us the program was ending. We are still waiting.

As survivors, we are no strangers to crisis. Now that we face another, I place my trust in God — and in Mayor Mamdani — to make sure my family, and the thousands of others who depend on NYCHA EHVs, have a safe place to call home.

Rodriguez is a New Yorker, mother, domestic violence survivor, and member of New Destiny Housing’s Voces de Cambio project.