Abused spouses overwhelm area crisis centers

By Lisa Ryckman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 15, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size

More Local News

The phone rings twice as often as it used to, and Leigh Ingram always knows who's calling.

It's someone who needs to escape violence at home, someone who might have bruises and kids but no money, no car and no place else to go.

Ingram will do her best to help; that's her job as senior women's advocate at Alternatives to Family Violence in Commerce City, which offers shelter, counseling and classes for battered women and their children.

But chances are their 21 beds are full: Alternatives had to turn away more women in a recent three-month period than it did all of last year.

And chances are it's going to be tough to find a bed anywhere.

"It's heartbreaking and infuriating," Ingram said. "You say, 'I can give you all of those numbers, but as of half an hour ago, I know they didn't have space.' "

A perfect economic storm has hit the metro area's domestic violence community: when the economy sours, the number of battered women soars - and donations shrink.

"That's the nature of the beast," said Dora-Lee Larson, community education director at SafeHouse Denver. "We'll be doing more with less."

For families already on the edge, job loss, foreclosures and the cost of food and transportation can be a breaking point. A 2004 National Institute of Justice study found that money problems tripled the risk of domestic violence; the highest rates occurred when the man had difficulty finding work.

Stress and abuse

"Some people are going to think the economy is causing domestic violence, but that's not the case," said Jennifer Walker, executive director of Women's Crisis and Family Outreach Center in Douglas County. "Those families have had those issues prior to the economic situation. Then somebody loses a job, that just heightens the stress and abuse and can escalate it to place where what was tolerable, isn't tolerable anymore."

At Woman's Crisis, the average 700 calls a month jumped to 2,100 in September, Walker said. Turning families away and being unable to find them space in other shelters has taken a serious toll on her staff.

"It's hard no matter what," she said. "And what happens when you're turning people away right and left, there's no bed space and the next story is worst than the last one?"

Then add insult to injury: even as demand increases, donations have begun to shrink or disappear altogether.

"This is the hardest time I've seen in my 18 years here," said Jeneen Klippel-Worden, development director at Gateway Battered Women's Services in Arapahoe County. "The demand is higher, the money coming in is lower. We're struggling."

Advocates worry that the situation might become even more dire next year, and there's no safety net: Colorado is one of only two states in the nation - the other is Mississippi - that doesn't support its domestic violence programs from general funds, relying instead on federal and private money, said Ruth Glenn, director of the state's Domestic Violence Program.

No safety net

The economy might cause some women to stay with their abusers because of the high cost of leaving. A Colorado Department of Human Services report said that victims often return to an abusive situation because they can't find affordable long- term housing.

But the price for staying can be higher: so far this year, at least 26 Coloradans have died because of domestic violence, Larson said.

In 2007, the most recent state statistics available, 6,341 individuals were turned away from shelters due to a lack of capacity, a 7 percent increase from the year before.

Turned away

A single-day snapshot of 32 of Colorado's 46 domestic violence programs in 2007 found that they served 1,061 domestic violence victims; 441 found beds in shelter or transitional housing, but 301 were turned away because of scarce resources.

"These domestic violence programs are a lifeline to families in crisis," said Amy Miller, public policy director for the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "When they don't have adequate resources to meet growing demand, that's reaching a dire circumstance for them, which ripples throughout the community."

Area shelters all support each other; no room at one means a flurry of calls to others. When that fails, the next step is helping the woman on the line think of short-term alternatives: Do you have friends or family to stay with? Could you pool resources with someone else to stay at a hotel together? Do you have a car? Where would be a safe place to stay in the car for the night?

"You get a lot of desperation from people," Ingram said. "If they're women who are calling in a violent situation and trying to get away, they ask 'What am I supposed to do? I can't stay here - he's beating me. I can't live on the street.' "

But they'll be calling back. Maybe there will be a safe place to go tomorrow, or the day after that, or next month or next year.

"Then you hang up the phone and scream to yourself," Ingram said. "And you answer the next call."

Key contacts

Here are some domestic violence crisis/hot line numbers:

* Denver: SafeHouse Denver 303-318-9989

* Arapahoe County: Gateway Battered Women's Shelter 303-343-1851

* Jefferson County: Women in Crisis/The Family Tree 303-420-6752

* Douglas/Elbert County: Women's Crisis and Family Outreach Center 303-688-8484

* Adams County: Alternatives to Family Violence 303-289-4441 Spanish 720-495-9760

* Boulder County: SafeHouse 303-444-2424

* National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News