A root cause of domestic violence? SCOTUS

At around 10:02am on Friday, June 21st, my phone blew up. My family and friends were all texting me with messages of relief over the Rahimi decision, in which the Supreme Court upheld a law barring domestic abusers from owning guns. As someone who spent over 25 years working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and who now leads a state coalition against gun violence, this case was absolutely keeping me up at night. I was beyond relieved to read the news, in fact, I found myself getting weepy over it. There’s a lot to say about the complexity of the Rahimi case decision, as well as how we have to celebrate when SCOTUS does the bare minimum to keep people safe, but celebrate I did. Because a different decision would have been calamitous for survivors.

But calamitous SCOTUS decisions still abound, and the extremist judges have done more than enough to put domestic violence survivors at further risk. There is of course the Dobbs decision, which started a flood of restrictive abortion laws in states around the country. Abortion is a domestic violence issue, and domestic violence is an abortion issue. Reproductive coercion is too often found in abusive relationships, and having a child in common ties a victim to their abuser for that child’s years of minority. Additionally, a pregnancy too often escalates an already abusive situation. And of course, the Bruen decision, which created chaos in how to understand and adjudicate gun laws. This all comes together with one sobering statistic: the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum people is not a medical condition. It is homicide. Most often by a current or former partner, and most often perpetrated with a gun. When you combine forced pregnancy with easy access to guns, you are absolutely creating more danger for an already vulnerable population. In a country where upwards of 70 women are shot and killed by a current/former partner each month, these SCOTUS decisions guarantee that victims will have fewer options and face more danger.

Now this past week, SCOTUS upheld a ban on sleeping outdoors. This is also a domestic violence issue.

SCOTUS just criminalized homelessness at a time when our shelters are full, affordable housing is nonexistent, and suburban communities are shutting their doors to anything that smells of zoning reform. And housing is absolutely a domestic violence issue.

When I started working with survivors of domestic violence in the mid-90’s, my program had a 90 day emergency shelter for people in immediate danger. It was structured as such because it usually took about 2 or 3 months to find longer term housing for survivors. This sounds like science fiction now.

As residential and transitional housing programs lost their funding, and housing costs skyrocketed, shelter stays got longer and longer. By the time I switched from domestic violence to gun violence prevention work five years ago, shelter stays were exponentially longer. Survivors would be there for months - most times over a year - applying for every kind of housing you can imagine to no avail.

This was incredibly frustrating for those survivors. It also meant that we pretty much never had shelter beds opening up for those in immediate danger, which resulted in us turning away survivor after survivor. Sometimes we had money to put them in a hotel overnight. Most times we would send them to an ER to get safe. Or just tell them we had nothing to offer them.

Which just sucks.

So lots of times survivors who wanted to leave would have to stay. Because it was safer to stay than to essentially choose homelessness.

It has long been documented that the majority of unhoused women have a history of DV, and in fact became homeless as a direct result of DV.

I had so many women in shelter who lost custody of their kids and were told that they wouldn’t get custody back until they secured safe housing. Most housing programs are for families, not “single” women. So someone loses her kids because of DV, goes to shelter, can’t get on housing lists because she doesn’t have her kids, but can’t get her kids back until she gets housing. I saw this happen over and over and over again.

Just a few weeks ago, a colleague of mine called me looking for help for a woman and child fleeing domestic violence. The local hospital had no options for her, and told her to go spend the night in the international terminal at Logan Airport - the place where migrants have been staying for months now awaiting shelter placement. I was appalled. And then the news hit this past Friday that people will no longer be allowed to sleep in the terminals at Logan, removing even that horrendous option.

Many years ago, a colleague of mine observed that we should look not at the choices people make, but at the options people have. I have carried that thought with me ever since. People in abusive relationships - particularly those who have limited financial resources - have very poor options for safety. People are quick to blame victims, but really this is on us, our policies, and our systems.

Am I relieved about Rahimi? Absolutely. But I repeat, SCOTUS has criminalized homelessness at a time when shelters are full and affordable housing doesn’t exist. At a time when too many women do not have options for dealing with an unwanted pregnancy or with an abusive relationship. At a time when the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women is homicide, usually at the hands of a partner and usually with a gun.

SCOTUS is not just punishing people for being poor, but they are also punishing domestic violence survivors and their children. Children who too often end up in state care, which is also a major precedent to homelessness. It is such a sign of our times (and our society) that we fail to care for folks in greatest need of services and resources, and then respond to their needs with punishment.

We can’t arrest our way out of any problem. I say this about gun violence all the time. We are certainly not going to arrest our way out of the housing crisis. And we are not going to arrest our way out of the public health crisis that is domestic violence. But that is what SCOTUS has to offer.

By criminalizing poverty, by decreasing options and autonomy for survivors, by enabling more guns in our society, I can only draw the conclusion that one of the causes of domestic violence is SCOTUS itself.