The New York Women's
Foundation Public Forum

Unlocking the Door:
Creative Solutions to Domestic Violence

Almost ten percent of murder victims in 2001 were killed by their spouse or intimate partner. Seventy-eight percent of these victims were female. Where are these women supposed to go?

The New York Women's Foundation held it's fourth annual public forum on March 6th, 2003, aptly titled "Unlocking the Door: Creative Solutions to Domestic Violence". Patricia Eng, NYWF Board member and Program Officer at the Ms. Foundation, introduced the event and Marcia Ann Gillespie, journalist and former Editor-in-Chief of Essence and Ms. Magazine gave the Keynote address. Both women stressed the importance of analyzing domestic violence as an act of terrorism, and made linkages between the national security issues we are facing as a country and the personal safety of millions of women and children within their own homes.

The Forum was dedicated to exploring the multiple, often overlapping systems and services that are put in place to assist survivors of domestic violence, but that often serve as obstacles to creating realistic choices for women and their families. Miriam Buhl, the moderator of the discussion, and Executive Director of the NYWF provoked a lively discussion by asking pointed questions to the panelists and by continually seeking background information in order to minimize jargon and clarify issues for the audience.

Several issues emerged that seriously impact domestic violence survivors who are trying to move out of their abusive homes and on with their lives. From time limits on domestic violence shelter stays to lack of affordable housing to the requirement of strict (or potentially harmful) standards in order to access Section 8 housing subsidies or public housing projects, women have to navigate myriad, often uncoordinated systems in order to move themselves and their children into a safe environment. This is particularly true for low income women, many of whom are women of color.

Why She Doesn't Just Leave
Central to the discussion of the situation that domestic violence survivors grapple with was the housing crisis in NYC. Lack of access to safe, affordable housing is a major impediment to women seeking to leave abusive relationships. According to Jill Stein, HousingLink Director at New Destiny Housing Corporation, women on public assistance receive about $250 for housing for a family of three. The average fair market rent for a family of three in New York City is $1,134. There are 12,000 unduplicated calls to NYC's domestic violence hotline each year requesting shelter, and each call typically represents a woman and 2 children.

The domestic violence shelter system has been set up as an emergency system since domestic violence is categorized as a crisis by the Human Resources Administration. The time limit on shelter, if indeed it is secured, is 90 days, with an option for one 45-day extension, after which the survivor and her family will be moved to homeless status, or will have to fend for themselves since no transitional housing is offered.

Many women end up in the Department of Homeless Service system because no space in the 1780 beds of the domestic violence emergency system is available or because they exceeded their 135 days in the domestic violence emergency system. Incidentally, homeless families, not classified in the crisis category, have a longer time period to find housing. Mayor Bloomberg has allocated 2,000 units to homeless and special needs populations. The NYC Coalition of Domestic Violence Residential Providers is requesting that 15% of those units be allotted to domestic violence survivors, which still would not be sufficient to serve the needs of most seeking shelter.

Understanding violence as a long term issue is imperative if the services are to reflect the realist needs and concerns of women trying to escape the abuse. The problem with placing survivors and their families in the crisis category is reflective of way that domestic violence is handled by a series of systems and services, which does not account for the long term ramifications for survivors and their children, nor does it address prevention measures.

Also mentioned throughout the forum was the 'cookie cutter' approach that the systems and services take when addressing domestic violence, allowing no room for personal stories or circumstances to inform the process. Tracey Little, of the Voices of Women Organizing Project, stressed that "women lack self-determination, being shuffled around means displacement from your community", which is a both a major deterrent to seeking shelter, and a feature that further isolates victims who are caught in the system. She added that social workers never ask for victim's opinions, contributing to "re-victimization", an occurrence that everyone on the panel affirmed.

Further, there are institutional barriers entrenched in the system that may serve to further victimize women seeking to escape their abuser. Women are required to provide a set of proof: orders of protections, 2 domestic violence incidence reports, medical records, and photos of the abuse, according to Sharon Stapel, a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society. She stated that getting an order of protection is often not in the best interest of her clients, and in fact it often places them in more danger, particularly because they reveal the location of the victim to the abuser, who is very likely to subsequently file for custody of the children.

It should be noted that low income women, women of color, immigrant women and lesbians find it especially difficult to gather this set of proof, further isolating those communities from seeking assistance. Issues with the police system, such as language barriers, fear of reporting immigration status, and fear of bias, as well as time constraints due to multiple jobs contribute to this cycle.

In addition, women often fear that their children will be put in foster care because police follow that route as a way to solve the immediate problem. Often the batterers arenÕt held accountable, and they are still in their apartments while the victims have to seek alternatives. Once making the decision to leave, the victims usually turn to the shelter system.

The system depicts women who don't follow the recommended or required route, ie: the cookie cutter model, as "bad domestic violence victims", said Ms. Stapel. Even if women did provide all the necessary information to be eligible for shelter, "it is not a rose garden" for survivors at the NY Asian Women's Center, according to their Director of Counseling Services, Fran Gao, whose clients often don't know the culture or language. It is extremely difficult for immigrants to leave their communities, and when social services tells them to come back, or threatens to report them to the INS, immigrant survivors of domestic violence are left with few options.

Women on the margins: Women of Color, Immigrant Women, and Lesbians
In New York City, over half of women suffering from intimate partner violence are foreign born and 80% are women of color. Alisa Del Tufo, from the Family Violence Project of the Urban Justice Center, put it bluntly when she said, "we're failing women of color and immigrant women."

Further, lesbian women don't have access to the services that are offered, such as family courts, which hinders their ability to take criminal action. Also, the person who communicates more directly when the police get involved is the one who will be taken seriously, and this has negative consequences for the less vocal partner, who in many cases is the one being abused. This is true for immigrant women as well, who may not be the ones who speak out to police due to language barriers, fear of immigration, or cultural factors. Recent studies with Latina, South Asian, and Korean immigrants demonstrated that 30 to 50 percent of these women have been sexually or physically victimized by a male intimate partner.

As mentioned above, the majority of systems deal with domestic violence after the fact, which isn't surprising due to its classification at the 'crisis' level. The Federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) office has spent over one billion dollars since 1994 to reform the criminal justice system in addressing domestic violence, but it's at the expense of preventive or community based responses. Ms. Del Tufo asserted, "arresting and making women leave their homes is not how we should spend our resources."

In conclusion, Ms. Buhl emphasized the need to get to the origins of domestic violence, increase preventive measures, and to address it as a multi-issue family problem. Combating violence against women requires an understanding of the multiple layers involved in the perpetuation of the cycle of abuse in diverse communities, and in creating woman-centered, culturally appropriate remedies. Both policy and services must address the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality and ethnicity in order to reach out to all women seeking assistance.

************************************************************************ Statistics from Safe Horizon, the largest provider of domestic violence services in the country, based in New York City:
• 90% of women who access the shelter system do so through Safe Horizon.
• Safe Horizon receives an average of 31 calls a day requesting shelter (each call reflects one woman and 2 children).
• There are less than 16 spaces for those families throughout the entire city.
• The overall call volume last fiscal year (2001) to the Safe Horizon domestic violence hotline was 151,000, with over 25,000 of those seeking shelter.
• Overwhelmingly people in the shelter system and those seeking shelter are people of color.