Housing is a human right. And people who live in houses have the right to live free from abuse—physical, mental, sexual and/or emotional.
Women Against Abuse (WAA) has been fighting for these basic principles of humanity in the city of Philadelphia for over four decades. In that fight, and in the ongoing struggle to eradicate intimate partner violence—what we continue to think of and refer to as domestic violence—the Sojourner House has stood as a beacon for those who need shelter from violent partners, and it remains a model for the kinds of comprehensive services required to redress some of our society’s most violent/deadly social ills.
Sojourner House and WAA have remained on the frontlines of these issues through the pandemic. Scholars and advocates in the space predicted a surge in domestic violence driven by the stay-at-home orders and other measures associated with the public health challenges presented by the spread of the coronavirus. Intimate partner violence has been (and continues to be) a brutal social issue, endemic to American patriarchal culture, even as the pandemic flared in the early months of 2020.
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A study released in March reveals some of the complexities in tracking the resources available to address intimate partner violence, something the onset of the pandemic last year amplified. In general, researchers believe that crisis events increase rates of domestic violence. This can be more pronounced in the context of events that force people to stay at home, or in this case, force victims to be shut-in with their abusers.
In the “Endemic Amid the Pandemic: Seeking Help For Violence Against Women in the Initial Phase of Covid-19” Penn researchers Susan Sorenson, Laura Sinko and Richard Berk examined calls to hotlines/helplines related to a range of issues, including support and advocacy for victims and survivors of intimate partner violence. Their conclusions complicated the predictions about a surge of domestic violence, at least to the extent that such a surge can be captured by the literal calls for help.
They found that many of the proven stressors that lead to increased domestic abuse were present during the pandemic lockdowns: an increase in job losses, financial insecurity, food insecurity, housing displacement, firearms purchases. The lockdowns also fed into another set of circumstances proven over the years to increase abuse: a motivated perpetrator, an appropriate target, and an absence of obstacles.
But, the study notes, the conditions of the pandemic (shut-ins, more remote work, quarantines, etc.) made it more difficult for people to find time and space to call for a lifeline. As a result, calls to Philly’s city-wide domestic abuse hotline were relatively unchanged—though the need, based on past patterns, was probably greater than usual.
The complexity of the data aside, one thing is certain: Those who called the hotline were courageous and desperate. And their needs were specific to the pandemic situation.
“During Covid, fewer callers than normal were asking for shelter,” Katie Young-Wildes, senior communications specialist at WAA, told me. “We still had people asking for shelter; we still had a lot of people in our safe havens, but there were more calls looking for legal protections as opposed to wanting to be in congregate living, which makes sense.”
According to Young-Wildes, there was also a marked increase in callers in need of insights on how to tell family members about their situations. The pandemic likely diminished real-time opportunities to seek help—to make the call. But it also created an environment in which communicating with family members and pursuing legal protection from domestic violence were at a premium. The research won’t always be able to capture this.
There is a powerful historical irony that animates the naming of the Sojourner House. The Sojourner House provides comprehensive services and transitional housing for survivors in the process of escaping dehumanizing domestic conditions with their children. Truth was dehumanized in all ways through the Peculiar Institution.
The Penn study is careful to provide caveats about its research and the conclusions drawn by the researchers. And the caveats might actually be the point. The results placed in context by those who work on the frontlines of this issue suggest that we all have much to learn about the scourge of intimate partner violence and what we can do to address it as a community.
Women Against Abuse has been on these frontlines for some time and the Sojourner House has become a literal safe haven for survivors of intimate partner violence in the city of brotherly love.
Supporting Philadelphians for decades
The Sojourner House is operated by WAA, an organization founded in 1976 by Peggy McGary, Carol Tracy, and Gloria Gay, who is still serving on the organization’s board of directors. Gay was a triage nurse at Philadelphia General Hospital in the 1970s and working in the emergency room exposed her to the unchecked problem of domestic/intimate partner violence. Women would come into the ER physically injured, mentally traumatized and after some form of treatment they had no safe place to which they might return. They were subject to abuse in their own homes.
Gay and her colleagues knew this was not just a Philadelphia problem; women across the country were beginning to organize around creating safe spaces for those who were abused and developing organizations that might address the systemic absence of any remedy to redress intimate partner violence in the city of Philadelphia.
WAA started as a part-time, volunteer-based organization that featured a hotline. They set up shop in the basement of the Germantown Women’s Center. Young-Wildes is reflective about WAA’s history. She tells me that: “Caller after caller on this hotline was asking for a place to stay. So, it soon became apparent that we needed a safe place. We opened our first shelter just one year later, in 1977.”
It was a three-bedroom house and each bedroom was immediately filled. For Gay and the co-founders of WAA, they approached the work as if they were a family taking care of those in need.
Sojourner House was founded in 1987, a decade after the WAA hotline for survivors of intimate partner violence began to reveal the need for transitional housing and comprehensive services as an essential piece of the work dedicated/designed to fight against the social complexities of the issue at hand. Sojourner House serves women, but it also serves anyone who is experiencing intimate partner violence—any gender identity is welcome.
But there is one important qualification: Sojourner House reserves its limited resources for those who are experiencing and/or surviving intimate partner violence and are the primary caregivers/caretakers of their children. This restriction is just to “make sure we are leveraging this resource to its full potential,” Young-Wildes tells me.
A powerful namesake
Sojourner House is named after Sojourner Truth—the Sojourner Truth. Born into slavery around 1797 in Ulster County, New York (as Isabella Baumfree), Truth endured the brutal conditions of chattel slavery (in the north), escaped from her enslaver and went on to become one of the most distinguished/accomplished human rights activists in American history. In 1806, at the age of nine, she was sold at auction with a flock of sheep for $100. Her time in slavery was harrowing and at least one of her “owners” was unusually violent. She was forced to marry and have children over whose lives and fates she had no control. When she escaped with her infant daughter in tow, she was forced to leave behind her other children.
There is a powerful historical irony that animates the naming of the Sojourner House. The Sojourner House provides comprehensive services and transitional housing for survivors in the process of escaping dehumanizing domestic conditions with their children. Truth was dehumanized in all ways through the Peculiar Institution. Some of the violence that she and her children endured is unimaginable for some of us in the 21st century.
But she was unable to escape with all of her children; and although she was able to ultimately reunite with them, the familial separation was devastating. The Sojourner House, in this sense, is named in a way that enacts a unique form of restorative justice for those who face some semblance of the violence that Truth endured.
As we look forward to some light at the end of our pandemic season, Sojourner House, the intimate partner violence hotline and WAA’s advocacy work will hopefully return to some sort of normal delivery of their extraordinary services. Of course, in this case, normal is not at all where we should be.
Truth’s work for women’s equality and suffrage are also important signifiers for the Sojourner House and for all of the work that WAA does to advance the causes of equality, safety, and the pursuit of human rights. But one lesser-known aspect of Truth’s extraordinary activism was her fight to secure federal land grants in order to provide space (and housing) for those who had been enslaved. She knew that in the post-emancipation moment, a place/space to call one’s own would be central to sustaining any kind of liberation for Black people in America. The house that operates in her name understands this as well, right now in this century, for those who are struggling to escape the scourge of relational violence.
According to Young-Wildes, freedom was heavy on the minds of the founders of Sojourner House in 1987. “The survivors of intimate partner violence who find respite there have had to overcome significant obstacles to live free from the constant danger and manipulation, control, and oppression of intimate partner violence.”
There is still much for many of us to learn (and understand) about how we can work together to help those who suffer in these situations, but one key piece of the work is to grasp the vital importance of transitional housing for those who have made the difficult decision to escape from their abusers.
“It’s a crucial link,” says Young-Wildes. For the people who are trying to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of intimate partner violence, transitional housing, is a decisive form of crisis intervention. Sojourner House allows for stays of up to 18 months, a significant amount of time designed to increase the family’s options to re-establish themselves and to take advantage of the counseling and other services provided through the program. Housing options are critical for those who are trying to live free from domestic violence and the Sojourner House provides a safe haven for them.
Understanding complex struggles
Another key misconception or misunderstanding of the challenges faced by those who suffer from intimate partner violence is the nature of the problem itself. In general, we do not consider the complexities of the issue. Intimate partner violence is not simply about one partner physically abusing another. It’s about power and control, emotional abuse and other psychological tactics in a broader pattern of behavior.
Oftentimes, our first instinct is to give advice and tell the victims and survivors to get out or otherwise remove themselves from the situation. Azucena Ugarte, the executive director of the city’s Office of Domestic Violence Strategies, says this is the wrong approach. “We need to ask the victim or the survivor: What do you need? How can I help you? These are the resources available, instead of telling them what to do.”
For Ugarte, it is more about understanding when a victim of intimate partner violence is ready. Whenever they are, we need to be ready to share with them the slate of resources available to them. “Whenever you’re ready to reach out to these resources, there’s a domestic violence hotline. There are programs like Sojourner House, shelters, counseling. You have legal options. You have rights” she says.
The city’s Office of Domestic Violence Strategies is a relatively new entity, established by the Kenney administration in 2016. Ugarte is a veteran in this work. She served as the director of training and prevention for Women Against Abuse and she has a comprehensive understanding of all of the ways in which the city and organizations like WAA must work in tandem to improve the overall response to intimate partner violence. Her office centralizes the efforts of WAA, Sojourner House, and other human rights organizations with the various city agencies dedicated to redressing these issues, including the Office of Homeless Services, Child Welfare Services, the Department of Housing Services, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Part of Ugarte’s work and the city’s overall effort to centralize resources in response to relational violence is organized through the Shared Safety Collaborative. When I ask her what would be important to highlight in this article, her response is quick and definitive. “I always want to highlight the domestic violence hotline: 866-723-3014. It’s 24 hours. It is completely confidential. Nobody is going to force you to make a decision you don’t want to make. We are just going to provide you with information and services to support you.”
As we look forward to some light at the end of our pandemic season, Sojourner House, the intimate partner violence hotline and WAA’s advocacy work will hopefully return to some sort of normal delivery of their extraordinary services. Of course, in this case, normal is not at all where we should be.
If you are in need of support, call the domestic violence hotline at 866-723-3014, any day, any time.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Gloria Gay’s name.
Header illustration by Nile Livingston for Mural Arts