Domestic violence and poverty: The narratives of homeless women

Frontiers, 1998 by Williams, Jean Calterone

No, not really. I've always been very resourceful.... I've got friends who are battered women and come to shelters like this, but I don't know anyone who's been homeless. We're survivors, most of us. We've learned to be very strong and resourceful because of everything we've been through. Financially, it's a big hurdle. If you don't have a job or skills, then you've got a problem.

Despite cultural narratives of domestic violence that historically have constructed battered women as "masochists,"'9 and a more current concentration on the psychologically debilitating effects of battering,20 Kim represents women who view leaving as courageous. Indeed, she argues that battered women are stronger than most specifically because they have experienced such violence. Tammy, also a EuroAmerican resident of Rose's House in her early forties, echoes Kim's construction of battered women as survivors. In response to the same question asked of Kim regarding whether she thinks of herself as homeless, Tammy asserts: "No, and it's bizarre because I guess I have been [homeless], but when someone says homeless you just go 'yuck'-I think of a bag lady. I guess since I've always been able to provide for myself, I just think of myself as in transition instead of homeless."

Those women who become homeless for reasons other than domestic violence display a similar desire to separate themselves from the label "homeless." "Homeless" suggests a woman mentally ill or drug addicted, unwashed, helpless, and hopeless, a person mired in a permanent "lifestyle" rather than "in transition." Though the inclination remains as strong for homeless women who are not battered, battered women make the move to claim an alternative status to "homeless" more successfully, in large part because they have recourse to the "battered woman" identity. Such an identity relies partially on a feminist narrative that constructs the "battered woman" as a person "in transition," a "survivor," stronger than other women for having experienced and left a violent situation, or a participant in a "sisterhood" that includes many other women assumed to have similar histories and needs.

Like other residents of Rose's House, Latanya, a twenty-eight-year-old African American woman with two children, also does not consider herself homeless, asserting that homeless people have different problems than she does, particularly that they have "given up." Claiming that "there is always a way out of homelessness," Latanya can never picture herself "on the street," and states that people become homeless because, unlike her, some are lazy, others "like to live like that," and still others "have been hurt badly in life." She argues that she would do anything to keep from becoming homeless, such as collecting cans for money or relying on public welfare payments until she could find work.

Despite her wish to distinguish herself from homeless women, Latanya's own story supports the contention that many women seek shelter for a multiplicity of reasons. Latanya grew up in a family with eight children, with a father who was an alcoholic and abusive to her mother and to the children. Like Latanya, most of her sisters have also had violent relationships, and she remains close to only one sister who also lives in Phoenix. Latanya had her first child at age seventeen, dropped out of high school, and lived with her son's father for five years. When she left him, Latanya moved with her son to an apartment subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). With subsidized housing, work in a fast food restaurant and cleaning houses, and some help from her sister, she managed to support herself and her child.