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You left the Abuser, Now What?
Topic Started: Aug 16 2015, 03:04 PM (569 Views)
Doctor Magnus Warlock
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High housing costs raise an obstacle for women fleeing abuse
Associated Press By COLLEEN LONG

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NEW YORK (AP) — When Karen finally decided to leave a husband who had been abusing her for years, she found out that fleeing was the easy part.

She and her little boy spent the next three years homeless, in and out of shelters, because she couldn't afford New York City rents.

"I was desperate to get a place, any place. But it was just impossible," said Karen, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition she be identified only by her first name because she fears for her child's safety. "When I was in the shelters, there were so many people like me, who could not find a way to start a real life."

Those fleeing domestic violence nationwide are struggling with a critical piece of recovery: finding a permanent home. As rents skyrocket and waiting lists for public housing grow, victims often end up homeless for years — or go back to their abusers for lack of options.

"Until you have a roof over your head you know you can come back to, where there's a place for you and a place for your children, you can't begin the process of healing," said Barbara Paradiso, director of the Program and Center on Domestic Violence at the University of Colorado Boulder.

One in four women will suffer domestic violence in their lifetimes, though the crime is dramatically underreported, according to the advocacy group Safe Horizon. It is the third-leading cause of homelessness among families, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Because of the nature of the crime, victims, mostly women, often have no access to money, no recent job history, and no friends or family they can turn to.

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The national rental vacancy rate dipped to 8 percent in 2014, its lowest point in nearly 20 years, as rents rose at a 3 percent rate — twice the pace of overall inflation, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

In Boulder County, north of Denver, where rents average more than $1,300 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, an advocacy group has only 12 affordable housing units available for about 300 domestic violence victims who need them.

"Even if they get a city voucher to help with rent, they're competing with other low-income folks in the community for rentals," said Anne Tapp, executive director of Boulder's Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence.

In Washington state, King County, which includes Seattle, has between 2,000 and 5,000 on a waiting list two years long for subsidized housing vouchers. In some rural and tribal areas, there was no help available. But the state Coalition Against Domestic Violence, working with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, allots to advocacy groups around the state $250,000 each to dole out to survivors for anything related to living expenses, from rent and tuition to grocery lists and vehicle repair. Housing coordinator Linda Olsen said more than 90 percent of the hundreds of families served have kept stable housing since it began four years ago.

There was no such help in New York for Karen when she left her husband and moved into a $900 one-room apartment with her son. She was drowning in bills for child care, utilities and food, and eventually ended up in shelters, where she bounced around for the next 2 1/2 years.

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There are about 2,000 beds citywide at emergency shelters specifically for domestic violence victims, who can stay up to 180 days. Karen landed in one of seven transitional shelters, where she stayed for months. But she also was forced into a general-population homeless shelter, the darkest days for her.

"I was so humiliated and scared, but there was nothing else to do," said Karen, in her 30s, who had met her abuser while still a teenager in Central America.

J., a 20-year-old with a toddler, says she spent months in shelters after leaving her abusive husband. She celebrated her baby's first birthday in one. Still, she was lucky. Many of the women she encountered had been in and out for years, some so frustrated with the uncertainty and shelter rules that they returned to their abusers.

"They couldn't do it. Couldn't take the limbo. They gave in, went back," said J., who also feared her estranged husband and agreed to speak on the condition she be identified only by her initial.

Many abuse victims looking for homes in New York City face a waiting list for public housing that is 270,000 families long, with 170,000 more families waiting for vouchers that ease cost of living expenses. Some domestic violence survivors' applications were first filed a decade ago.

The city has also seen a net loss of nearly 104,000 private rent-stabilized apartments over the past 21 years. And the median rent for a studio apartment in New York City is now about $2,500 a month, with a vacancy rate of 2 percent, according to real estate industry figures.

Advocates say relief came from Mayor Bill de Blasio last year when he started a rent subsidy program, in part for domestic abuse victims. City officials also have eased some requirements that made it more challenging to give housing priority to such victims. But many fear it won't last.

Karen and J. have been beneficiaries. J. is in nursing school and lives in a clean, new apartment in public housing. Karen got a visa and is working to get a pharmacy technician degree. She now lives in her own apartment in public housing. The home has changed her life dramatically, and her son, now 6, laughs and plays again.

"Every day he is like, 'Mommy, thank you for our new home.'"



http://news.yahoo.com/high-housing-costs-raise-obstacle-women-fleeing-abuse-154131703.html
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U Thant
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*waits for elements of traditional Doc Cop, mantra, to feature a darkskinned-Black male as abuser*
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cisslybee2012
The REBEL
Here's the real side of the story not being told...

Firstly, girls are not taught anything about life, that they cannot establish a real life through a man. That she has to have a real life with herself before a man can join her. Not actually looking for life to begin starting from a man, and a real connection with a man cannot begin with sexual intercourse. No one teaches girls this.

Then with homelessness, this occurs more from carelessness in paying bills than anything else. The majority of people in NY who become homeless did so in refusing to pay their rent. And of this lot, it's most often drugs that they're spending their rent money on. In NYC, the rents are high but everyone can be housed. Though for the better and more decent and stylish housing, a waiting list is required. This isn't new but the way of life in NYC. Now many people who have acquired such a nice residence for themselves, thru a long awaiting list, have turned around and carelessly lost it to refusal to pay their rent and get high with the money instead.

In fact, many homeless people on the street and in shelters are not truly homeless because they have family who will take them in. But many amongst this lot prefer to live without rules. And they will be obliged to live in your house but will object to not being able to do as they please in it. Which leads to their welcome being worn out rather quickly and they living in a shelter or on the street. That they rather have that way then live by any rules. It's in fact a very exciting life for them to collect monies from people passing by, as they know that sympathy alone gets them more money in a week than the average person working 40 hours a week.

And finally,

That women work the domestic violence protection system which bumps this segment up in priority on the housing waiting list, and the minute they move into their new pad, brings in the same guy on record for abusing them in with them. Now imagine that. This segment has a priority for receipt of help, when in actuality, they're putting the abused and the abuser in priority for coverage. Which is literally coddling domestic violence and protecting it like a little baby in priority to realer emergencies. These reports and stories only give a tear jerking account of conditions and never ever the bald faced truth about it.

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cisslybee2012
The REBEL
A major fact of life is that the weak spoils everything for the strong.

The weak almost always comes first, and they who are the least concerned for value of anything they receive.
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cisslybee2012
The REBEL
And as far as relationships go,

The simple fact of the matter is that most women have it real hard with men. Real hard. It doesn't matter what race or ethnic group she belongs to. As for instance, I got a friend, a white German woman who lives in the Bronx, about a half mile or so away from me. She's married to a Hispanic guy and they got two boys together. Now my friend is a good mother and keeps an immaculate home. She got their apartment fly as fuck. Almost as fly as mine. ^_^

She's a really together sister, and strictly on the productive and positive.

But her husband is quite a different story. :D

Man,

This mufucka goes out and don't come back for days, is stupid as hell and can't tell when a man is sniffing his wife's ass, and automatically assumes that only black men want to get next to his wife and gotta be watched. This guy is a dick head to put as nicely as possible, and my friend is unhappy with him and I don't blame her. He's a fucking idiot. All she talks about is leaving him.

Edited by cisslybee2012, Aug 16 2015, 06:19 PM.
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Doctor Magnus Warlock
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Ethos Logos Pathos
Aug 16 2015, 04:03 PM
*waits for elements of traditional Doc Cop, mantra, to feature a darkskinned-Black male as abuser*
One reason chicks don't find you appealing is because you spend way too much time being preoccupied with the activities of other men.

It is never a good thing for a woman to "wait" for a man to make a move before reacting.

You should follow that same mantra.
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Doctor Magnus Warlock
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cisslybee2012
Aug 16 2015, 04:13 PM
Here's the real side of the story not being told...

Firstly, girls are not taught anything about life, that they cannot establish a real life through a man. That she has to have a real life with herself before a man can join her. Not actually looking for life to begin starting from a man, and a real connection with a man cannot begin with sexual intercourse. No one teaches girls this.

Then with homelessness, this occurs more from carelessness in paying bills than anything else. The majority of people in NY who become homeless did so in refusing to pay their rent. And of this lot, it's most often drugs that they're spending their rent money on. In NYC, the rents are high but everyone can be housed. Though for the better and more decent and stylish housing, a waiting list is required. This isn't new but the way of life in NYC. Now many people who have acquired such a nice residence for themselves, thru a long awaiting list, have turned around and carelessly lost it to refusal to pay their rent and get high with the money instead.

In fact, many homeless people on the street and in shelters are not truly homeless because they have family who will take them in. But many amongst this lot prefer to live without rules. And they will be obliged to live in your house but will object to not being able to do as they please in it. Which leads to their welcome being worn out rather quickly and they living in a shelter or on the street. That they rather have that way then live by any rules. It's in fact a very exciting life for them to collect monies from people passing by, as they know that sympathy alone gets them more money in a week than the average person working 40 hours a week.

And finally,

That women work the domestic violence protection system which bumps this segment up in priority on the housing waiting list, and the minute they move into their new pad, brings in the same guy on record for abusing them in with them. Now imagine that. This segment has a priority for receipt of help, when in actuality, they're putting the abused and the abuser in priority for coverage. Which is literally coddling domestic violence and protecting it like a little baby in priority to realer emergencies. These reports and stories only give a tear jerking account of conditions and never ever the bald faced truth about it.

You do have those that unfortunately buck the system.
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Doctor Magnus Warlock
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cisslybee2012
Aug 16 2015, 04:57 PM
A major fact of life is that the weak spoils everything for the strong.

The weak almost always comes first, and they who are the least concerned for value of anything they receive.
Those that don't earn rewards the right way rarely do.
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Doctor Magnus Warlock
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cisslybee2012
Aug 16 2015, 05:12 PM
And as far as relationships go,

The simple fact of the matter is that most women have it real hard with men. Real hard. It doesn't matter what race or ethnic group she belongs to. As for instance, I got a friend, a white German woman who lives in the Bronx, about a half mile or so away from me. She's married to a Hispanic guy and they got two boys together. Now my friend is a good mother and keeps an immaculate home. She got their apartment fly as fuck. Almost as fly as mine. ^_^

She's a really together sister, and strictly on the productive and positive.

But her husband is quite a different story. :D

Man,

This mufucka goes out and don't come back for days, is stupid as hell and can't tell when a man is sniffing his wife's ass, and automatically assumes that only black men want to get next to his wife and gotta be watched. This guy is dick head to put as nicely as possible, and my friend is unhappy with him and I don't blame her. He's a fucking idiot. All she talks about is leaving him.

The article, & the example of your friend makes it clear that women really need to plan an exist strategy if their funds/resources are limited, and the easy solution does not involve moving in with extended family.
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Doctor Magnus Warlock
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My sister-in-law's cousin told me before she got married she was going to keep her own separate bank account just for herself. She did that just in case things did not work out with her mate.

Smart move, I say.
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