Domestic violence and poverty: The narratives of homeless women

Frontiers, 1998 by Williams, Jean Calterone

Ella's story provides an expression of the ways that domestic violence and poverty may intersect to create the very elements that often lead to homelessness. A forty-three-year-old Euro-American woman with three children, Ella left her husband five years ago and entered Rose's House domestic violence shelter. By the time she left, the violence in their eighteen-year marriage had escalated to the point that her husband, Jim, often threatened her with knives and guns. She believes that if she had stayed longer, he eventually would have killed her, and as a result Jim still does not know where she lives. During their marriage, the couple was homeless off and on, at one time sleeping for four months in the woods and for two years in their camper, getting most of their food from dumpsters. Ella worked sporadically as a waitress and her husband in construction, but primarily they lived isolated lives in rural areas. Ella notes that the poverty and violence escalated simultaneously over time, to the point that in the last year and a half of their marriage they rarely bought groceries: "One time, we lived off canisters of candy thrown away by the supermarket for one month. We lived off chicken thrown away from the supermarket deli. I would have to pick off the dirt and mop strings before serving it." After she left Jim, Ella stayed at Rose's House for two months.

The violence in Ella's marriage made a fragile economic situation worse and contributed to her need for social services or a shelter when she left. She needed a supportive shelter or program in order to ensure her and her children's safety and allow her time to finish school and find employment. Women like Ella who leave violent partners are much like other homeless women who do not have family on whom to depend or whose families are too impoverished to offer them many resources. Because an abuser often isolates his partner from friends and family, and a woman's shame for the beatings encourages her to remain isolated, women fleeing violence may lack a network of friends and family upon whom to rely for housing, money, food, or clothing. Moreover, low-income women who wish to leave such a relationship often do not have any money saved that they can use to support themselves until they find employment. Others cannot find a job that pays a living wage. Even a woman leaving a middle-class home may have earned a salary well below her husband's and may find it difficult to live on her income alone. Although Ella possessed a high school diploma, during her marriage she "felt like there was no way out . . . that it was possible only to get waitressing and fast food jobs" that she did not think would support herself and her children. At the same time, however, she began to realize that she could obtain assistance from the social service organizations (from which she and her husband had occasionally obtained food boxes) without her husband, and she saw that as providing an escape from the marriage.

Ella currently juggles a full-time university schedule (she has a 4.0 average), part-time employment as a case manager working with elderly men and women as a counselor and advocate, and raising her three children, ages nine, ten, and thirteen. In addition to subsidized housing, she receives a Pell Grant and some support from AFDC as her work at the hospital is an unpaid internship, a requirement for her graduation. She also participates in a transitional program for homeless families called Endowment for Phoenix Families (EPF). The program's goal is to help people become financially secure enough to permanently leave behind government-subsidized housing. In the three-year program, families find their own housing and pay a portion of their incomes to the landlord for rent, while HUD pays the balance with a voucher. Despite all her accomplishments, Ella and her children continue to live in constrained economic conditions. Their old, sparsely furnished house has torn window screens, and the carpet is worn through to the concrete floor in several places. Ella explains, "we still run out of almost all food except beans and rice by the end of the month."