Domestic Violence Victims Seeking More Assistance

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Victims of domestic violence in Wisconsin are seeking more assistance and staying longer in shelters. Advocacy agencies are looking to increasing violence and poverty as feeding the trend.

According to the Department of Children and Families, there were 32 percent more domestic violence advocacy contacts last year than in 2010. While the raw number of victims staying in domestic abuse shelters has been flat, those that use the shelters stayed 12 percent longer. Shannon Barry is the executive director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Services in Madison. She says they’re feeling the effects of that trend. “Many of the people who are coming to us for shelter services are reporting more severe violence, more stalking, strangulation and death threats from their batterers, and they’re requiring longer shelter stays with more intensive case management support.”

Barry says during the past two years their waitlist for shelter beds in Madison has increased by 643 percent. She says each case is different, but unemployment and a poor economy is a common theme in domestic violence. Carmen Pitre is co-executive director of the Sojurner Family Peace Center in Milwaukee. She says they too are seeing more intense violence and more complex situations related to economic issues. “Poverty causes challenges, and if you have a family that’s challenged, that’s living in violence, and you have someone who’s using violence, poverty does not make that better: It makes it worse.”

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Pitre says poverty can make it harder for victims of domestic violence to leave their abusers, especially when children are involved. She says that’s because without money, finding and staying in transitional housing is very difficult.