Days after the District made the shocking announcement that $20 million had been cut from the homeless services budget for the 2010 fiscal year, advocates and organizations that provide shelter for the homeless are still reeling. One of The Women’s Foundation grantee partners is reaching out for help – as winter approaches and the organizations that assist the homeless face a crisis.

Calvary Women’s Services was notified Monday, September 28, by The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (TCP) that contract funding for Calvary would be cut by nearly $75,000 beginning October 1st.  These funds support safe housing and other services for 150 homeless women each year.  TCP is an independent, non-profit corporation that coordinates DC’s Continuum of Care homeless services.

Calvary is one of many social service providers notified of cuts to their existing contracts. Emergency, transitional and supported permanent housing programs were all targeted as the city attempted to close an ever-widening budget gap.  The impact of these cuts on the overall homeless services system is going to be severe, with some housing programs reducing their services and others likely closing programs. 

Although these cuts may provide some immediate relief to the city’s budget problems, the real impact of the cuts will be felt by those in need of safe housing and support services.  Women who have already lost their jobs in this economic crisis will have fewer services and housing options available to them. These cuts will make women who are already at-risk much more likely to end up living on the streets or in unsafe situations.

The women who come to programs like Calvary are survivors of violence, women struggling with mental illness, and women working to overcome addictions.  At Calvary we make sure they have access to all of the services they need to address these challenges – in addition to providing a safe place to live.

We know that programs like ours work.  Every five days a woman moves out of Calvary and into her own home.

We have always relied on the support of both public funding and private donations to make our programs possible.  In the past, supporters have helped us close gaps like this one, and I am hopeful that the community will step up once again.  But I am also concerned that this gap may be too wide for our generous donors to close.

The coming months will be challenging ones for organizations like Calvary, as we try to find ways to continue to provide women in this community with critical, life changing services.  More so, they will be challenging months for women who need services like ours, as they face closed doors and reduced services at programs across the city.

 You can make a difference.  Support Calvary – or another agency facing these cuts – today. 

 Volunteer, donate or learn more at www.calvaryservices.org.

Kris Thompson is the Executive Director of Calvary Women’s Services, recognized as a 2009 Leadership Awardee by The Women’s Foundation.  Learn more about them on their Web site or on Facebook.

We’ve partnered with The Urban Institute to provide continuing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones. Below you’ll find a summary of the latest research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families. This research is summarized and compiled for The Women’s Foundation by Liza Getsinger of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

The following are excerpts of the research update.  For the full update, including summarized key findings, click here.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News
The median household income in the District of Columbia rose from $56,400 in 2007 to $57,900 in 2008, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey; however, DC residents with the lowest levels of education saw their incomes fall significantly from 2007 to 2008. (Full text)

Jobs and Business Ownership News
One fifth of all families with children are headed by working single mothers. The families of single mothers have a high poverty rate – 28.3 percent. The persistent gender wage gap continues: in 2007, women who worked full-time, year-round earned only 78 cents for every dollar earned by full-time, year-round male workers. These findings suggest that a number of changes in policy and practice are needed to improve women’s earnings. You can read the details about these findings by clicking here.

Child Care and Early Education News
A new Child Trends research brief explores the issues that judges consider when making decisions about termination of parental rights (TPR) and adoption of foster children. Several judges reported that the absence of TPR limits the adoption recruitment efforts of the child welfare agency. Some judges report a need for more discussions with older children to explore and address their concerns about adoption. (Full text)

Health and Safety News
Today, there are about 1.1 million people with HIV/AIDS living in the U.S., including nearly 280,000 women. Women of color, particularly black women, are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. The impact of HIV on younger women is particularly notable – more than 6 in 10 new HIV infections among women were among those ages 13-39 in 2006. 76% of women with HIV/AIDS who were receiving medical care had children under 18 in their homes, which may complicate their ability to manage their illness. (Full text)

Other News and Research
The Urban Institute surveyed District permanent supportive housing (PSH) agencies and specific PSH projects. The research includes a look at how the District might move forward toward fulfilling its commitment to create 2,500 new units of PSH and eliminate chronic homelessness. (Full text)

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.”  It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit TheWomensFoundation.org for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every week.

Here’s this week’s news:

• The Washington Post tells the story of how Lawanda Madden and her children became homeless. Her family joins an influx of recently homeless single-mother families now relying on relatives for shelter and food.
• The Times-Picayune profiles Looking Good, a nonprofit founded by Hope Encalada that provides low-income women with professional clothing, makeovers and a self-confidence boost in preparation for job interviews.
• Many low-income mothers will be left without affordable childcare if day care centers close due to budget cuts, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
• The Boston Globe features a piece on a movement in Providence to close down “spas,” or thinly veiled brothels.  Rhode Island is the only state in the U.S. that permits indoor prostitution.
• The Times Picayune reports on a teen panel on poverty and drugs, which included suggestions from several young women living in impoverished neighborhoods.

To learn more about Spotlight, visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org.  To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity Team

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity is a foundation-led, non-partisan initiative aimed at ensuring that our political leaders take significant actions to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the United States. We bring together diverse perspectives from the political, policy, advocacy and foundation communities to engage in an ongoing dialogue focused on finding genuine solutions to the economic hardship confronting millions of Americans.

As part of our ongoing commitment – in partnership with The Urban Institute – to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below a summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families. This research is summarized and complied for The Women’s Foundation by Liza Getsinger of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

Below are excerpts of the research update.  For the full research update, including summarized key findings, click here.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

The National Council of Negro Women conducts a study to identify potential lending disparities in gender and race among African-American, Hispanic, and Caucasian borrowers, particularly as the foreclosure crisis spreads.  (Full text) 

Jobs and Business Ownership News

The Brookings Institution publishes research on the extent to which the recession has affected urban and suburban communities across the country and looks looks within the nation’s 100 largest metro areas to examine recent unemployment trends in their cities and suburbs. (Abstract) (Full text)

Child Care and Early Education News

A new Child Trends study commissioned by the Council of Chief State School Officers finds disparities between poor, at-risk children and more advantaged children as early as 9 months of age–extending prior research that primarily focuses on disparities at kindergarten entry and beyond. (Abstract) (Full text)

Health and Safety News

The Urban Institute identifies ways to reduce obesity using many of the same strategies used in the war against tobacco.  (Introduction) (Full text)

Other News and Research

The Economic Mobility Project investigates neighborhoods and the black-white mobility gap, including whether neighborhood poverty in childhood impacts the ability of both black and white adults to move up or down the income ladder relative to the position their parents held and whether changes in neighborhood poverty rates experienced by black children affected their adult incomes, earnings, and wealth. (Abstract) (Full text)

I wanted to share a story from a recent case of human trafficking in D.C. that Polaris Project handled to show the impact of the work we’re doing and how The Women’s Foundation plays a role in it. 

Like many others, Rosa* was struggling to find employment.  While at the mall, Rosa was handed a business card and told about the opportunity to become a waitress. Rosa called the number and set up an interview.  When she arrived, she was pulled into a vehicle and taken to a brothel.  Rosa was forced into prostitution and suffered horrific abuse and threats. Thankfully, she found a moment to escape, ran outside, and flagged down a moving bus.  The driver called 9-1-1. Once the police arrived and identified Rosa as a trafficking victim, they immediately contacted our on-call staff to provide emergency assistance.

We provided Rosa with her first meal in three days and clothing and accompanied her to the hospital for treatment.  Rosa is steadily recovering.  She secured safe housing and hopes to reconnect with her family members living outside of the United States.

The Women’s Foundation has been really ahead of the curve in recognizing human trafficking as a grave danger to women and girls in our community and across the country. 

I wish that the story I provided was a rare case, but we help people in similar situations on a regular basis.  With the support of The Women’s Foundation, Polaris Project has helped 50 trafficking victims locally in 2009 and provided more than 850 nights of shelter through our transitional housing program in D.C.

The support The Women’s Foundation has provided has been really important to our local efforts.

*Name was changed to protect the identity of the client.

Tayler Wilhelm is the Senior Development Officer with Polaris Project, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation and winner of the 2009 Leadership Awards online vote.

As part of our ongoing commitment – in partnership with The Urban Institute – to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below a summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families. This research is summarized and complied for The Women’s Foundation by Liza Getsinger of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.  

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

The Urban Institute provides statistics on the work effort, earnings, health care access and other characteristics of low-income families. (Abstract) (Full Text)

 Jobs and Business Ownership News

The Brookings Institution investigates the accessibility of middle-wage jobs — good paying jobs for the less-educated workers — for those without bachelor’s degrees in 204 metropolitan areas. (Abstract) (Full Text)

Child Care and Early Education

The National Institute for Early Education Research examines the journeys of six states — Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, and West Virginia — in achieving a plan for preschool for all. (Intro) (Full Text)

Health and Safety News

The Urban Institute explores the unique experiences of women exiting prison, focusing on a representative sample of 142 women who were released from Texas prisons and state jails in 2005 and returned to Houston communities. (Intro) (Full Text)

Other News and Research

The Urban Institute provides comprehensive data indicators and analysis on the state of older youth (age 12-24) in the District and examines  the role of area nonprofits that work with young people, their families, and neighborhoods. (Abstract) (Full Text)

The DC Abortion Fund (DCAF) is devastated and appalled to know that our most skilled and intensely dedicated late-term abortion provider, a beloved partner to DCAF, Dr. George Tiller, was fatally shot in the lobby of his church in Wichita, Kansas on Sunday morning, May 31, 2009.

In the past eight months, DCAF pledged financial assistance to four uniquely challenged women—from Maryland, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia, as well as in Omaha, NE, to obtain a third-trimester termination from Dr. Tiller at Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita.

Two of the women were taking medications considered harmful to fetal development.  One attempted to self-abort countless times before reaching out—terrified because she came from New Guinea, where abortion is illegal.  One spent 10 weeks trying to raise money to afford her abortion before finding DCAF.
One patient was a fifteen-year-old sexual assault survivor who didn’t know she was pregnant until the beginning of the third trimester.  One of the women had diabetes and a fetal anomaly.

While heartbroken for the women we assisted, we found solace in knowing Dr. Tiller was willing to provide comprehensive care when there was no other option.

DCAF is eternally indebted to the legacy of boundless courage and compassionate health care offered whole-heartedly by this man who gently and faithfully urged us to trust and support women.  He truly exemplified reproductive justice for all by working tirelessly to accommodate struggling families all over the country.

In accordance with our respect for Dr. Tiller’s profound service to women, DCAF is grateful for our partner clinics and heroic providers–true warriors on the front lines, ensuring access to quality abortion care in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

In memory of our angelic and wise doctor and beyond the shadows of opposition, we remain determined in our mission to provide our neighbors with dignified health care regardless of what’s in their wallet.

Elisabeth Sowecke is the lead case manager at the DC Abortion Fund, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

A woman accuses an older, politically powerful man of raping her.  He denies the charges, and offers to pay her off to drop them. When she persists, his defense lawyers put her sexual history on trial, including her experience of child sexual assault. They accuse her of lying about being a lesbian. They add that her behavior, including sending him text messages and wearing revealing clothing, were an invitation for sex. Supporters of the perpetrator stand outside the courthouse with signs saying, “How much did they pay you, bitch?” He is acquitted and returns to his everyday life. She and her family are forced to relocate due to death threats.  Source.

It could be a snapshot from anywhere in the U.S., but this particular scene unfolded in South Africa between 2004 and 2006, and the accused was Jacob Zuma, who was inaugurated last week as South Africa’s new President.

This trial had another unfortunate twist: the accuser, nicknamed Khwezi (star) by her supporters, was HIV positive.  Despite his previous role as head of South Africa’s National AIDS Council, when asked the (irrelevant) question of whether he was worried about contracting HIV, Mr. Zuma testified that, "Chances were very slim you could get the disease” from having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman, and that he showered after having sex with her to "minimize the risk of contracting the disease," grossly misleading statements that have perpetuated myths and possibly cost lives.

Despite a persistent cloud of scandal, Jacob Zuma has remained popular in South Africa due to his ties to Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement, his role as the country’s first post-apartheid Zulu leader, and what many describe as his charisma.

Regardless of the verdict – or whether it was rendered after a fair trial – Mr. Zuma’s response to the charges provide alarming evidence of how he will approach South Africa’s women – and particularly the growing pandemic of violence against women – during his term. Also disturbing is the lack of attention in domestic and international media to the rape accusation, Zuma’s response, and its implications.

South Africa has been called the rape capital of the world, with an estimated half a million women raped every year. It is also home to the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world – approximately six million.

So why hasn’t Zuma’s complicity in perpetuating these twin pandemics prevented him from assuming leadership?

The short answer is democracy, and by all accounts this was a fair election. In fact, the African National Congress – Zuma’s party – won by nearly 50 percentage points. But as advocates of women’s health and empowerment in Washington, D.C., we should be concerned about the more difficult answer.

Because the women of D.C. are also suffering from the twin pandemics of violence and HIV/AIDS.

Survivor blaming at home

Recent surveys indicate that between 10-15 percent of women in the U.S. are raped in their lifetimes, while an additional three percent of women report surviving attempted rape (stats here and here).  This amounts to a woman being raped every two minutes in the U.S.

The statistics on sexual assault in D.C. are much harder to come by. 

According to the DC Metropolitan Police Department, there were 375 reported cases of sexual assault in 2008. 

But Denise Snyder, Executive Director of the DC Rape Crisis Center (DCRCC), puts this statistic in perspective, explaining, “The general belief is that about 10 percent of rape survivors ever report the incident to police, so if you multiply this number by 10, you are probably getting closer to the truth in D.C.”

DCRCC’s rape crisis hotline received over 3,200 calls during the 2007-2008 fiscal year, but Snyder points out that crisis hotlines, “are not even the primary contact for most rape survivors, who are more likely to tell their family and friends after an incident occurs.”

There are many reasons for the overwhelming failure to prevent and address sexual violence globally, in the U.S., and in D.C. Unfortunately one of the most important reasons might be that policy-makers – and the public in general – just don’t believe its happening.

Survivor blaming is a term used by advocates and researchers working to combat sexual violence to describe the tendency – of law enforcement agencies, legal systems, and even family, friends and acquaintances – to doubt or blame the survivor of sexual violence.

In reality, it is very rare for a woman or man to lie about being raped. The Rape Crisis Federation of Europe estimates that false reports of rape occur at the same rate as other crimes – only about two percent of the time, which means that 98 out of 100 women and men are telling the truth when they say they were raped.  And it makes sense, given the continued re-traumatization that survivors must undergo when they do come forward, as evidenced by Jacob Zuma and his supporters’ treatment of Khwezi.

As a former volunteer hotline and hospital counselor for the DC Rape Crisis Center, I witnessed the devastating impact of survivor blaming on women and men in D.C. who were grappling with their experiences of sexual violence. The frequency with which I heard phrases such as, “Thank you for believing me”, or “Why did this happen to me?” underlined the all too common experience of disclosing an incident of sexual violence only to be met with doubt and blame.

A recent study conducted with U.S. college students found that negative social reactions (e.g. blame, stigmatization) of family members and friends toward a rape survivor reduced other people’s support, reduced blame for the perpetrator, and reduced sympathy for rape survivors in general.  The same study found that people were more likely to blame survivors of date rape than stranger rape, and that men were more likely to sympathize with the perpetrator than the rape survivor.

Another recent study, "Effects of Offender Motivation, Victim Gender, and Participant Gender on Perceptions of Rape Victims and Offenders"– also conducted with U.S. college students – found that participants were less likely to describe an event as rape and more likely to blame the victim when they were told the perpetrator’s motivation was sexual rather than violent.

Our tendency toward survivor blaming – often relieving the perpetrator of responsibility – goes a long way in explaining why so few incidents of sexual assault are ever reported to police.
As a rape crisis counselor, I was also responsible for having the difficult conversation with survivors about whether it was worth pressing charges, given the fact that only six percent of rapists ever spend a day in jail, and the inevitable negative impact on her or his life, including exposure of their sexual history and other destructive attempts by the perpetrator’s defenders to call their character into question.

Allowing this cycle of victimization to continue for survivors of sexual violence is unacceptable in itself.

More broadly, when survivors can’t come forward to a supportive and empowering environment, we as a community lose the opportunity to provide them with needed services, identify and convict rapists, and prevent sexual violence in the future.

So if we are serious about combating sexual violence, if we do not want to see one out of six women in the next generation spend their lives trying to recover from this trauma, then our first step must be to start believing the survivors.

Unfortunately, they are telling the truth.

As Khwezi insisted after (now President) Zuma was acquitted, “I am not mad. I am not incapable of understanding the difference between consensual and non-consensual sex. The fact that I have been raped multiple times does not make me mad.  It means there is something very wrong with our world and our society.

Stephanie Psaki has an MPh from the Harvard School of Public Health. In 2007, she spent two months in Durban, South Africa conducting research on women’s empowerment and sexual partnering behavior among university students. She also had the privilege of volunteering for the DC Rape Crisis Center, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, as a hotline and hospital counselor from 2004 to 2006.

Last week, New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristoff published a column on sex trafficking of young, American girls, stating, "The business model of pimping is remarkably similar whether in Atlanta or Calcutta: take vulnerable, disposable girls whom nobody cares about, use a mix of “friendship,” humiliation, beatings, narcotics and threats to break the girls and induce 100 percent compliance, and then rent out their body parts."

Eerily similar to a piece we posted here a while back discussing the work of our Grantee Partners fighting trafficking here in Washington, D.C., often on K Street, where The Women’s Foundation’s office is.

Oddly, the same day Kristof’s article was published, a timely reminder of how closely this issue continues to strike in my community hit my inbox, when Taylor Wilhelm, senior development officer with Polaris Project–a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation with work focused on combatting human trafficking–wrote to let us know of the powerful impact of their work. 

"Recently, a trafficker was brought to justice in a case that began with a call to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline, operated by Polaris Project," she wrote.  "On a Friday afternoon, a youth educator called the hotline when her local youth center experienced the unexplained disappearances of several children. We were able to work with the caller to identify a human trafficking network, to refer the case immediately to federal authorities, and to locate the lost children in a nearby State two weeks later. They were discovered to be part of a multi-state human trafficking ring."  (See the press release.) 

Tayler closed by saying, "We greatly appreciate the many ways you all support us to make successes like this more common!"

The Women’s Foundation is proud to partner with organizations like The Polaris Project, Fair Fund and Covenant House (mentioned in the Kristof piece), to combat sex trafficking and to be part of the solution. 

As Kristof writes, "Solutions are complicated and involve broader efforts to overcome urban poverty, including improving schools and attempting to shore up the family structure. But a first step is to stop treating these teenagers as criminals and focusing instead on arresting the pimps and the customers — and the corrupt cops."

Each of these organizations understands this and is effectively working to educate their communities about the realities of trafficking, to advocate for policies and safe houses to protect victims and to collaborate with school and law enforcement officials to prevent trafficking at the outset.

The Women’s Foundation is proud to support their efforts.

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Less than four years ago, I considered myself pro-choice, but I couldn’t tell you where to obtain an abortion in my northwestern-Ohio, college town.  In fact, the Planned Parenthood in Toledo (the nearest city to offer abortion services) could not offer abortion-care in order to receive state funding.  I naively assumed a woman seeking an abortion could have one at her doctor’s office or community clinic because she had the right to choose.  Period.

Today, I live in Washington, D.C. I am a communications associate at a reproductive health nonprofit, an abortion counselor at a women’s health clinic in Maryland and a case-manager for a local, grassroots abortion fund.

I can discuss the real-life avenues, barriers, freeways and alleyways to abortion-care access throughout this country.  If you have hours, perhaps days, I can lament and exalt in-depth stories of women who have abortions to preserve their health, dignity and the goodness in this world.

Everything I do in the reproductive justice movement is equally a basic human service and an act of privilege.  The women and families I serve deserve more than I, or this movement, can provide. 

Currently, there is no time for condolences and ritualized mourning, for discussing or attempting to prove what I know because women are homeless and jobless and still have children to feed. 

Meanwhile, they are assaulted, abandoned, ignored, denied and judged.

The DC Abortion Fund (DCAF) dedicates explanation, education, emotional support and vital financial assistance to women in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.  A dozen case-managers volunteer their time to field about 60 telephone calls per week, tailoring resources to each individual caller.  While every woman’s situation is unique, the recurring trends among our neighbors are undeniable.

Overwhelmingly, a woman seeking financial assistance for her surgery has less than $0 to her name, at least one child, no employment or a part-time job, and an apathetic man involved.  If her family does support her decision, they are often equally destitute, but contribute about $100 collectively.  She has nothing to sell or already sold it all to buy diapers or baby food a few months ago.  She will need to acquire anywhere from $250 to $7000 to have an abortion in her region.  She may opt to travel to Pennsylvania, New York or Atlanta, Georgia, where significantly lower surgery fees may off-set travel expenses.

In the past year, the need of those who reach out to the abortion fund has nearly doubled, and a modest, dedicated donor-circle replenishes the dwindling bank. 

As a case manager, I have told a crying 17-year-old with no parental support that DCAF will pay for the majority of her $3600 surgery, but I have also told a crying 17-year-old with no parental support that she will have to adjust to having her baby because our funds have been stretched and we have asked our supportive donors too often.

I foresee the situations of our neighbors getting worse in this financial climate before they get better. 

I fear one day she will have $0 and DCAF will have $0 to give her, and her life will grow even more disproportionately complicated.

I believe that when you give to your local abortion fund regularly, you profoundly simplify a potential mother’s life, giving her even the slightest bit more room to breathe, to recognize her potential in this life. 

In recognizing complexity, ambiguity and downright basic rights, you honor life by making reproductive justice a reality for every woman regardless of what’s in her wallet.

Elisabeth Sowecke is the lead case manager at the DC Abortion Fund, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.