Articles for the Topic "Domestic Violence"

Domestic Violence and Homelessness

2008-08-25T01:50:11

This fact sheet examines the relationship between domestic violence and homelessness. A list of resources for further study is also provided. (NCH)

Domestic Violence and Homelessness

2009-03-30T04:28:47

When women flee domestic abuse, they are often forced to leave their homes, with nowhere else to turn. Landlords also sometimes turn victims of domestic violence out of their homes because of the violence against them. For years, advocates have known that domestic violence is a primary cause of homelessness for women and families. Studies from across the country confirm the connection between domestic violence and homelessness and suggest ways to end the cycle in which violence against women leads to life on the streets. (Authors)

Domestic Violence and Poverty: The Narratives of Homeless Women

2008-06-16T12:46:20

Among the many reasons for homelessness, domestic violence and low-cost housing shortages experienced within a context of poverty are fundamental for low-income women living in shelters. Women interviewed in homeless and battered women’s shelters in Phoenix, Arizona, describe a process of becoming homeless that usually involves a combination of interlocking events and factors, such that it is impossible to isolate one explanation for a woman’s homelessness. Nonetheless, women’s stories indicate a pattern in their persistent poverty and bettering relationships prior to becoming homeless. (Author)

Domestic Violence Shelters and Civil Rights Statutes

2009-07-24T11:36:16

This Q&A provides information about federal civil rights laws that apply to domestic violence shelters and the services they provide to clients. Four federal civil rights laws are discussed in this Q&A: 1. Americans with Disabilities Act (referred to as the ADA) 2. Fair Housing Act (referred to as the FHA) 3. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (referred to as Title VI) 4. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (referred to as Section 504) (Authors)

Domestic Violence, Homelessness, and Children's Education

2007-04-06T12:06:32

This brief outlines the consequences of domestic violence for children and the federal legislative responses: the McKinney-Vento Act and the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act. It also provides policies and practices for schools and service providers as well as resources for more information.

Fact Checker: Domestic Violence

2007-06-24T12:37:53

Domestic violence is the immediate cause of homelessness for many women and children. In November 2006, over 22,000 victims of domestic violence—12,000 children and 10,000 adults—received housing services from 1,243 domestic violence service providers. Domestic violence victims are often isolated from support networks and financial resources by their abusers, meaning they may lack steady income, employment and credit histories, and landlord references. Safe and stable housing is the most immediate need for survivors of domestic violence to prevent them from staying with their abuser or sleeping on the streets. (National Alliance to End Homelessness)

Family Violence and Homelessness: The Relevance of Trauma Histories in the Lives of Homeless Women

2007-09-25T09:08:10

Explores the possibility that the characteristics noted in homeless women at the time they are identified as homeless may be due in part to the long-term effects of past traumas. Studies of homeless women reveal high lifetime rates of childhood physical and childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and of assault by intimate male partners. CSA has a long-term impact on emotions, self-perceptions, interpersonal relating and social functioning, physiological well-being, safety, and self-care. Although not all homeless women experienced CSA and most CSA survivors do not become homeless, family violence may increase vulnerability to later homelessness for some survivors. Some of the manifestations of traumatic victimization can be systematized in terms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (Author)

Insult to Injury: Violations of the Violence Against Women Act

2009-04-23T11:49:29

Violence against women is a leading cause of homelessness nationwide. Ensuring safe and affordable housing is essential for survivors of domestic violence and for preventing and ending homelessness. (Authors)

Sanctuary in a Domestic Violence Shelter: A Team Approach to Healing

2007-10-04T12:28:52

For survivors of domestic violence, the ongoing effects of trauma are compounded by the context of their abusive experience. Injury caused by a person one has loved and trusted damages beliefs about oneself, other people, and the world. Staff members of various disciplines and educational backgrounds who work in domestic violence shelters are dealing with this damage as well as the impact of trauma on shelter residents. They face the challenge of observing and responding to the effects of recent and past abuse, to traumatic reenactments within the setting, and to their own secondary trauma reactions. This paper explores the process of implementing the Sanctuary® model in a domestic violence shelter as a way to address trauma and its impact on clients and staff. The Sanctuary model was chosen because of its focus on teamwork, and the guidelines for treatment it provides that are accessible to all members of the treatment community. (Authors)

Shortchanging Survivors: The Family Violence Option for TANF Benefits

2009-12-17T10:28:18

Despite a federal law that could improve access to the major federal welfare program for the poor (Temporary Aid to Needy Families, or TANF) for domestic violence survivors, many survivors are being denied this potentially life-saving aid. This report by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty shows how poor state and local implementation of an important federal waiver can leave survivors in severe economic distress. (Authors)

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

2007-08-06T11:25:36

When Trauma and Recovery was first published in 1992, it was hailed as a groundbreaking work. In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking. (Basic Books)

Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care Training for Domestic Violence Service Providers

2009-04-23T10:51:37

Trainingforums.org is a cost effective, accessible, dynamic e-learning facility providing relevant, timely training and discussion to the domestic violence victim service provider community. Funded by OVW, a department of the U.S. Department of Justice, this facility will offer timely courses on topics, trends and issues relevant to service providers serving domestic violence victims. (Authors)

Women, Housing, Homelessness and Domestic Violence

2007-07-11T08:52:50

Many women's lives are still deeply affected by unequal power relationships between men and women and by conventional expectations about domesticity as well as by the actualities of their responsibilities for the care of children and the home in which they live. If women experience violence from a husband or male partner, the violence may be intimately connected with these expectations and realities. If they then have to leave home because of the violence, their problems are compounded by their domesticity and lack of access to financial resources and by the homelessness legislation, which has recently been changed to make its use as a point of entry to permanent accommodation much more restricted. In addition to the violence they have experienced, the loss of home is in itself an element in the complex nature of the trauma that women in a violent relationship suffer. This is compounded further for themselves and their children by the uncertain period they spend waiting for the possibility of rehousing if they leave. The study described in this paper looked at homelessness law in the UK before the passage of the recent Housing Act (1996) in Britain. It does not bear out the supposition that homeless families, including women escaping from domestic violence and their children, were unfairly favoured under the previous legislation. The paper argues that the withdrawal in the new Act of the statutory link between homelessness and a lifeline to permanent housing is an example of the ambivalent and contradictory nature of government policy in relation to families and to the social position of women, and is a potentially disastrous development for many women experiencing domestic violence and for their children.(Authors)