High-profile cases of sexual assault, especially those that happen in our state, make us pause and return to the big questions in our work to end sexual violence. The horrifying gang rape that occurred at Dunbar Village this past summer is such a case.

According to the Palm Beach Post, on June 18, 2007, up to ten armed youths between the ages of 14 and 18 forced themselves into a woman's apartment where they repeatedly raped her, smashed a plate over her son's head and poured household chemicals into his eyes and over her body. The details of the crime, many of which are not included here, have horrified even veteran investigators.

The depth of violation, violence and devastation in this type of case takes a toll on advocates and highlights the need to address compassion fatigue on an ongoing basis in our work.

The case also demands that we look again at the intersections of racism, classism and sexual violence and struggle with the complexities of how to effectively advocate for victims and communities facing multiple oppressions. The answers aren’t simple and aren’t easily packaged into the job descriptions of advocates already overworked tending to those survivors who make it to the front door or directors struggling to keep programs afloat. But at the start of a new year, we owe it to ourselves, the survivors we serve and our world to take a few minutes and imagine how we can begin to change things for those harshest hit by injustice.

Dunbar Village, built in 1940 with 245 apartments, is a public housing complex run by the West Palm Beach Housing Authority. According to the Palm Beach Post, during the year leading up to the attack on the mother and her 12-year-old, police responded to Dunbar Village 717 times, an average of about two times a day. Residents have been quick to point out, however, that this crime could have happened anywhere, and that the majority of offenders, including the perpetrators of the gang rape, do not live in Dunbar.

This month, The Reverend Al Sharpton visited the complex, and was quoted in the Palm Beach Post saying, “We must look beyond the surface of the savage attack to see what is the environment it is made in." While some residents are quick to defend their community, many want desperately to move but don’t have the resources to do so. Poverty pins residents of public housing complexes such as Dunbar against a wall and doesn’t leave much room to move.

Poverty and Sexual Violence
The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape (PCAR) is engaged in groundbreaking work looking at the links between poverty and sexual violence and asking advocates to make economic advocacy a cornerstone of anti-rape work. In their wonderful manual,
Poverty and Sexual Violence: Building Prevention and Intervention Responses, they point out that perpetrators of sexual violence often target individuals who lack power in the larger society and who will be less likely to report or when they do tell someone, less likely to be believed or deemed credible. People living in poverty are often either ignored or penalized by the larger society. Therefore, poverty often serves to silence and discredit survivors, especially when it is compounded by other forms of oppression and isolation.

According to the PCAR’s manual:
Research shows an undeniable, complex, and often cyclical connection between poverty and sexual violence. People living in poverty and lacking economic power and resources are at greater risk for sexual violence. Persons with a household income under $7,500 are twice as likely as the general population to be sexual assault victims (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1996).

For thousands of women, a lack of economic resources has devastating consequences on their abilities to alter their environments or to live in safety, particularly if they have dependent children. People living in poverty experience daily stressors in meeting the basic needs some of us take for granted, such as obtaining food, shelter, transportation or clothing and keeping themselves and their families safe.

Poverty can make the daily lives of women and children more dangerous and make them more dependent on others for survival and, therefore, less able to control their own sexuality, to consent to sex, to recognize their own victimization or to seek help when victimized; poverty can necessitate high-risk survival activities (CDC, 2007). For instance, according to the World Health Organization’s World Report on Violence and Health (2002), poverty increases one’s vulnerabilities to sexual exploitation in the workplace, schools, and in prostitution, sex trafficking, and the drug trade (Krug, et al., 2002). Individuals who lack sufficient economic resources to meet their basic needs, specifically women, may have to resort to bartering for essential goods with sex (Jewkes, Sen, & Garcia-Moreno, 2002).

Advocacy with Public Housing Agencies
The Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV), under the leadership of consultant Lynn Rosenthal, has created materials and trainings designed to help advocates build relationships with public housing authorities to improve the response of public housing to victims of domestic violence and look at ways to make public housing safer. Ms. Rosenthal points out that advocates know well how to do systems change work—advocates have been focusing on making criminal justice systems more responsive to victims for years. The reality, however, especially for victims of sexual violence, is that only a small minority of victims interface with the criminal justice system. It is just as, if not more, important to engage systems such as public housing to reach many historically underserved survivors and their communities. Advocates can transfer skills they’ve learned advocating for victims in the criminal justice system.

FCADV’s excellent manual, Protecting Access to Public and Voucher Housing: An Advocacy Manual for Domestic Violence Centers, provides some concrete strategies for beginning advocacy with public housing authorities that are easily extrapolated to advocates in rape crisis centers. Here are a few ideas for how to begin the work of reaching out to public housing communities and the victims living there:

1. Learn more about public housing including your local public housing agencies.

FCADV’s manual provides an introduction to understanding public housing:
Public housing is intended to provide decent and safe rental housing for eligible low-income families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. Public housing comes in all sizes and types, from scattered single-family houses to high-rise apartments and is commonly referred to as “housing projects.” These units are owned and operated by public housing agencies. While the focus for many years was the creation of public housing units, in the mid 1970s public housing assistance shifted to subsidizing housing on the private market through vouchers. Today, voucher programs are the greatest source of subsidized housing for low income families and individuals. Originally called Section 8 and now referred to as the Housing Choice Voucher Program, the purpose of vouchers is to keep tenants from having to pay more than 30% of their income on rent. Tenants find a house or apartment to rent from a landlord willing to take the voucher, and the voucher makes up the difference between 30% of the tenant’s household income and the payment standard for rent in that area. The funding for both public housing and voucher housing is appropriated by Congress and administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD). On the local level, HUD provides these funds to public housing agencies, who in turn administer one or both of these programs at the local level.

A Public Housing Agency (PHA) is a state, county, municipality or other governmental entity or public body authorized to engage in or assist in the development or operation of low-income housing. There are 117 public housing agencies in Florida. These agencies are governed locally by appointed or elected Boards of Commissioners and an Executive Director. There is no state agency that acts as a PHA in Florida.

A good place to begin advocacy is to determine the PHAs in your area by visiting HUD’s website: http://www.hud.gov/local/fl/renting/hawebsites.cfm.

It then makes sense to figure out what type of public housing each of the agencies provides and who are the best staff people with whom to work.

2. Engage PHAs in planning around the needs of victims of sexual violence.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as reauthorized in 2005 amends the federal housing planning process so that public housing agencies must address domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in their five-year and annual plans. VAWA 2005 requires that the five-year plan include a statement of the “goals, objectives, policies, or programs that will enable the housing authority to serve the needs of child and adult victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.” In addition, PHAs must report in their annual plans on activities, services or programs they have provided or partnered with other service providers to offer these victims, including services to maintain housing, prevent the violence or enhance victim safety.

Take some time to think about prevention, intervention and outreach strategies that might enhance safety and services for those in public housing in your area. Use the skills you’ve developed as an advocate in other systems to develop working relationships with PHA administrators. Often, as we’ve learned from work developing Sexual Assault Interagency Councils (SAICs), the relationship has to begin director to director.

3. Ask PHAs to use their discretion in favor of victims of sexual violence.

Federal law provides PHAs with a great deal of discretion for developing local policies governing housing programs, and these policies can have a dramatic effect on the lives of victims of sexual violence. PHAs can give preferences for admission to victims of sexual violence and are more likely to do so if they have a strong working relationship with the local rape crisis center.

4. Partner with domestic violence programs.

Many domestic violence programs have already received training in how best to reach out to public housing authorities on issues of violence against women. Rape crisis programs that are not dual service agencies should reach out to the local domestic violence program and team-up. The work will be easier together. For dual programs, make sure you are addressing issues of sexual violence as well as domestic violence in your work with public housing.

While only those closest to the crime can truly understand its impact, we can all bear witness to the suffering of this particular Dunbar Village family by taking a few minutes in our work week to do one thing to extend our services and our skills to communities in dire need of support.

This project was supported by Grant Number 2005-WF-AX-0055 awarded by the Violence Against Women Grants Office, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice or the Florida Department of Children and Families.