Survive, That’s All She Can Do: Sexual Violence and Homelessness

Content Warning: Sexual violence and gender-based assault, femicide, mental health issues. The term r*pe is often used to not undercut any recounting of trauma. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911. 

Sex Workers Outreach Project Hotline: (877)-776-2004

National Domestic Violence Hotline: (800)-787-3224

National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline: (800)-656-4673

The Compounding of Social Issues

Social issues do not exist in a vacuum, they compound on one another and continue to do so as long as public policy fails to address them. Homelessness, while an enormous social issue on its own, places women at increased risk for sexual violence, coercion, and trauma that is experienced before, during, and even after secure housing is obtained. 

In the wake of the #BelieveSurvivors and #MeToo social media movements, it’s clear that violence against women is still a taboo topic, and survivor advocates place constant pressure on politicians to combat the issue. 1 in 3 women are projected to be sexually abused in their lifetime. For New York City, that means approximately 1,426,667 women are projected to be the victim of a gender-based crime.

Black women and trans women of color are assaulted at rates higher than any other demographic, but this rate is further increased when secure housing is unattainable. Unhoused people are more likely to fall into a “cycle” of violence and poverty unlike those who suffer with means to escape-- many times domestic and sexual violence plunge an individual or family into homelessness. Other times, homelessness increases susceptibility to sexual violence and abuse. The two remain inextricably linked in the world as causal factors of one another. 

A Cycle of Abuse

In a study conducted by VAWnet across a racially diverse group of unhoused mothers, 92% of respondents reported experiencing gender-based violence with 42% of this violence manifesting as childhood sexual abuse. Women who experience homelessness are more likely to experience gender-based violence prior to, during, and after bouts of housing insecurity. The trauma of assault is a burden carried by many women, but women experiencing an episode of homelessness are far more likely to be burdened with this trauma on top of fighting to maintain physical health and economic stability. 

53-year-old Lori Yearwood, in an essay published by The Washington Post, writes about the cycle of abuse that led her to homelessness and continued throughout her search for secure housing. Yearwood, like many others, believed homeless shelters to be safe havens for those in need, yet her time inside one showed her why many “refuse” shelter intake. Yearwood said the women’s homeless shelter where she stayed was a perfect “replication of the chaos of the streets,” and her time in a women’s shelter led her to her abuser only known by the name John. He preyed on her vulnerability; after multiple meals together and escorting her around, John held her captive in a storage unit. Forcing his body on her, she would be raped for two days until her abuser allowed her to leave. Yearwood said she stopped talking shortly after her violent assault. Mentally unstable, she placed her abuse in the hands of her faith and justified the abuse as divine- God planned for this to happen. 

She could not fight back and, with no means to take flight, she froze. The abuse endured for months, until he once again raped her, shaved her head, beat her, and forced her back onto the streets naked. Yearwood stepped back into a shelter where all people could do is stare. 

This account is not as unbelievable as one might think-- in a survey of homeless women, 13% reported being raped within the past 12 months, while more than half reported more than two in the same time frame. Lori Yearwood’s deteriorating mental state is common among survivors of trauma, and it became clear to Lori that the shelter staff were not trained to identify abuse or assess when to intervene.

Even if intervention is possible, the women who experience these violent assaults are unwilling to contact the police for fear of retaliation or distrust of police forces. Yearwood’s abuse, however, is more than a policy failure-- her abuse highlights the dangers of living as a woman. The cries of women begging not to be touched ate at her, for she knew their pain. 

VAWnet recently published a report on the sexual violence experienced by homeless women and emphasized that the survivors’ psychological distress is only exacerbated by the failure of homeless shelters to adequately address trauma in a sensitive manner. The unintentional triggering situations that shelters put many women through, especially when recounting stories of trauma and abuse, without enough resources can further hinder a woman’s ability to obtain residential stability. A woman’s history is integral to discovering the resources she may need, and when women’s issue (like sexual violence) are treated as monolithic issues-- we leave behind the silent survivors. 

Homeless women are raped more than women with secure housing-- addressing the social issue of homelessnes would greatly improve the safety of women forced out on to the street, but the issue of violence towards women, especially trans and cis Black Women, will only end when an intersectional approach to both issues is taken. Survivors living without secure housing fall through the cracks, and policy must prioritize and acknowledge issues of homelessness as issues of women’s liberation. 

Exploitation in our Own Backyard

Early in the month of February, ten women reported their abuse at the hands of Victor Rivera as they reaped the benefits of his nonprofit that works to secure housing for residents of New York City. Rivera is the former President of the Bronx Parent Housing Network, an organization that received over $250 million dollars in the past four years to combat homelessness and provide preventative social services. He assaulted unhoused, vulnerable women who relied on the services of BPHN. 

Erica Sklar, shortly after surviving an assault by Rivera in 2016, fell into a state of depression in the years following the attack. After a few occasions when Sklar successfully brushed off Rivera’s sexual advances, he retaliated. Forced to move to a “dank, moldy apartment on the ground floor,” with no other housing prospects available to her, she stayed there for nearly three years in fear. 

The story of Mr. Rivera and his abuse of power is shared to show that the issues of housing insecurity in the United States places the lives of women at increased risk. When sexual violence causes women to lose stable housing and forces them to endure violence to secure it once more-- the two, intertwined, feed off the failures in public policy to address either of the issues. The dehumanization of people experiencing insecure housing is troubling, but the invisible survivors of New York’s unhoused population is horrifying.

* Women is commonly used in this article, please note that this is solely because this article discusses the intersection of homelessness and violence against women. Sexual violence is about power, not desire, and ClearPath encourages all people to seek support through the journey of navigating recovery no matter their gender identity.