DV Opaque Referral

Privacy-preserving shelter referral for domestic violence survivors. Zero client PII stored. Designed to support VAWA/FVPSA compliance requirements. Human-in-the-loop safety screening.

DV shelter operators should consult qualified legal counsel regarding their specific compliance obligations.

Referral Flow Walkthrough · 7 Screenshots

Privacy Guarantee

The referral token contains zero client PII. Only operational data is stored: household size, population type, urgency, special needs, and the worker's callback number. The shelter address is shared verbally during a phone call, never through this system. All tokens are hard-deleted within 24 hours.

Outreach Worker: Request a Referral
1 DV Shelter in Search Results Outreach Worker
A woman and her two children need a safe place tonight. Darius searches for beds — and because he has DV authorization, safety shelters appear in his results. Instead of "Hold This Bed," a purple "Request Referral" button appears. He doesn't know the shelter's address. That's by design.
DV shelter with Request Referral button
2 Referral Request Form Outreach Worker
Darius fills in only what the shelter needs to make a decision — household size, urgency, special needs. No names. No addresses. No client PII enters the system at any point.
Referral request modal
3 Pending Referral — Waiting for Response Outreach Worker
The referral is submitted. Now Darius waits — a countdown timer shows how long the shelter has to respond. He stays with the family.
My Referrals with pending token
DV Shelter Staff: Screen & Respond
4 Safety Screening View DV Coordinator
At the shelter, the coordinator sees the referral come in — household size, urgency, special needs. No names, no faces. She reviews what she needs to make a safe decision: can we serve this family tonight?
Coordinator screening view
5 Referral Accepted — Begin Warm Handoff DV Coordinator
She accepts. Darius's notification bell lights up instantly — the referral status changes to Accepted and the shelter's intake phone number appears — but still not the address. That comes next, voice to voice.
Referral accepted
6 Warm Handoff — Worker Sees Phone Number Outreach Worker
Darius calls the shelter intake line. The coordinator gives the address over the phone — the warm handoff. The address never appeared on a screen, never hit a database, never left a digital trace.
Warm handoff phone number
Rejection Flow
7 Referral Rejected with Reason DV Coordinator
Sometimes the answer is no — "No capacity for pets at this time." The coordinator explains why without revealing anything about the client. Darius sees the reason and can request a referral to a different shelter immediately.
Referral rejection with reason

What Happens After

All referral tokens — accepted, rejected, or expired — are hard-deleted within 24 hours by the purge service. No audit trail of individual referrals survives in the database. Only aggregate Micrometer counters (requested/accepted/rejected/expired) remain for HUD reporting, backed by Prometheus when the observability stack is active.