H.R. 8426 — Crime Survivor Support and Stability Act of 2026

This section expresses the sense of Congress that each state should review and revise, if necessary, its laws to ensure survivors of violence receive specified rights and support for healing, safety, and recovery. Those rights include (1) access to trusted community-based trauma help; (2) emergency and flexible financial assistance without burdensome restrictions; (3) stable housing protections, such as lease-breaking without penalty or eviction safeguards; (4) paid, job-protected leave for recovery needs; (5) debt forgiveness related to victimization; (6) legal assistance for housing, employment, immigration, or family issues; (7) community-based alternative accountability processes instead of criminal prosecution; and (8) protection from arrest or conviction for trauma-related offenses, with mitigated sentencing and record clearance. Such rights must not be contingent on reporting or cooperating with law enforcement or prosecutors; the survivor's demographic characteristics, immigration or criminal history status, or perceived contribution to the victimization; or the perpetrator's identity or relationship to the survivor.

This section establishes a grant program authorizing the Attorney General, through the Director of the Office for Victims of Crime, to award grants to community-based organizations with a history of serving survivors of violence (where the majority served are such survivors) to create funds for distributing unrestricted direct cash assistance to survivors of violence and their family members to improve safety, healing, and financial stability. Eligible organizations must describe their service history, community violence and incarceration impacts, expected reach, and plans to minimize documentation burdens on recipients; grantees may use up to 20% of funds for program administration (e.g., staffing, training, operations, evaluation). In administering the program, the Director must minimize paperwork, provide accessible processes and technical assistance (including templates posted online), publicize the program, and create a website listing grantees; grant priorities favor organizations in high gun violence and incarceration areas that serve vulnerable survivors (e.g., survivors of color, with disabilities, transgender, formerly incarcerated, immigrants, Native Americans, unhoused, low-income, or geographically underserved), are led or staffed by survivors or formerly incarcerated individuals with community ties, and reflect community demographics, with selections ensuring geographic diversity.

This section directs the Attorney General, acting through the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), to make grants to states not later than one year after enactment for administering surveys of survivors of violence to assess their related needs. BJS must prioritize grants addressing specified topics, including (1) services received or desired, (2) experiences with relocation, eviction, immigration, and housing post-victimization, (3) interactions with law enforcement involving use of force or injury, and (4) victimization prevalence and needs among individuals who are arrested or convicted, unhoused, or living in institutions (e.g., prisons, jails, medical or nursing facilities, or mental health facilities). Grant recipients must submit reports on survey results to BJS not later than one year after enactment and annually thereafter, which BJS must publish on its website. The section authorizes $5 million for each of FY2027 and FY2031.

This section establishes definitions for terms used in the Act, including: (1) community-based organization, as a nonprofit, nongovernmental, or Tribal organization that serves a specific geographic community (excluding law enforcement agencies, courts, or agencies designated to investigate or prosecute crimes, abuse, or violence); (2) family member, generally encompassing a child's parent or guardian, spouse or domestic partner, grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, household members, and other close blood or marriage relatives (excluding persons who have committed violence against the individual); (3) survivor of violence, as an individual against whom acts causing or threatening bodily injury, use of a weapon or force, dating violence, domestic violence, family violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, trafficking, or stalking have been committed; and (4) Tribal organization, as defined in section 40002 of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (34 U.S.C. 12291).