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Danielle was desperate for safety when she stood outside her home with Austin police for hours, trying to figure out how to get away from the man who had been abusing her.
She had nowhere safe to take her three children. All she had was a spot on a waiting list and instructions to call back every day.
"All of the shelters were so full, even surrounding Austin shelters," Danielle, now 35, recalled.
That was four years ago, long before the pandemic lockdown further depleted resources for victims of abuse, cut off family support systems, increased substance abuse and tension over unemployment, isolated victims and made escaping domestic abuse more difficult, advocates told Austonia.
Now, in addition to an increase in the calls for help, pandemic-era social distancing has cut the available shelter space—usually full with waitlists even before pandemic—by roughly half, advocates say.
According to recent numbers from the Texas Council on Family Violence, about 75 percent of families in Travis County are turned away from domestic-violence shelters due to lack of space.
Programs like Survive2Thrive, which uses partnerships with hotels to get these families to emergency safety, are expanding to meet the need.
"There's always been an issue with displacement and homelessness for victims of domestic violence... but with COVID-19, it kind of opened it up," said Courtney Santana, founder and CEO of Survive2Thrive Foundation, a seven-year-old Austin organization.
As Austin grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, domestic violence incidents are on the rise.
The SAFE Alliance, which runs a shelter and offers services, saw a 25% increase in calls to their hotline in March through June of this year, compared to last year. In the same time frame this year, the Texas Advocacy Project, which provides free legal services, saw an 82% increase in the number of abuse victims "coming out of the woodwork," said CEO Heather Bellino.
"The severity is on the increase," she said. "The level of fear is heightened."
Expanding alternatives
In April, Survive2Thrive established the COVID-19 Domestic Violence Phone Bank for police and referring agencies to allow them to more quickly find shelter for families in need. The following month, the group secured nearly $800,000 in funding from the city and expanded a network of Austin hotels where survivors can stay up to 14 days until they can find more permanent housing.
"It just opened an opportunity for us to have a further conversation about this lack of capacity and this gap in services for survivors that can't get into the shelter or don't qualify for shelter services," Santana said.
Since then, the foundation has been able to serve more than 350 people, helping more than 130 families, Santana said. The group plans to ask for two more years, as the money is being spent quickly on the growing demand.
"We have over 1,500 rooms in the Austin area and partnerships with about 10 local hotels, and two of them take COVID-positive people," Santana said. "So you don't really have to turn anybody away as long as you have case management to support them."
Danielle said Survive2Thrive—where she now takes hotline calls from others like her—got her into a hotel, helped her change her phone number and email and win a protection order against her abuser.
They still offer support, amid the fear that her abuser could one day try and come back, she said.
"That's what makes me feel more comfortable that I don't have to do something that's going to put me in the penitentiary, or my kids don't have to do something that's going to re-traumatize them," she said.
Popular
(Bob Daemmrich)
Hours following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, on Friday, about 1,000 people gathered in Republic Square with signs calling for change.
The rally, organized by the group Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights Texas, started at the federal courthouse on Republic Square on Friday at 5 p.m. before the crowd marched to the Texas Capitol. More protests are expected to ensue over the weekend.
People showed up with all types of signs like Mindy Moffa holding up, "Keep your filthy laws off my silky drawers."
Austin joined cities across the country that saw protests for a women's right to an abortion after the ruling.
According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
Sabrina Talghade and Sofia Pellegrini held up signs directed at Texas laws. A Texas trigger law will ban all abortions from the moment of fertilization, starting 30 days after the ruling. When state legislators passed the trigger law last summer, it also passed laws for more protection of firearms, including the right to open carry without a permit.
Lili Enthal of Austin yells as around 1,000 Texans marched to the Texas Capitol.
From the Texas Capitol, Zoe Webb lets her voice be heard against the Supreme Court ruling.
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(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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