Decriminalizing Domestic Violence. Leigh Goodmark
property as a nuisance property. . . . This is your notice to cease this behavior and to cure these problems. . . . If these activities continue, your lease will be terminated.” The landlord informed police of his intention to terminate the resident’s lease should she make another call to law enforcement. The Milwaukee Police Department accepted that plan. Four months later Milwaukee police informed the landlord that the problems with the tenant had continued; the landlord evicted the tenant. The landlord submitted the eviction letter to police, who responded, “Plan Accepted! Please ensure eviction takes place.” Another landlord sent a letter to Milwaukee police explaining that “we are evicting Sheila M. . . . She has been beaten by her ‘man’ who kicks in doors and goes to jail for 1 or 2 days. . . . We suggested she obtain a gun and kill him in self-defense, but evidently she hasn’t. Therefore, we are evicting her.”
Landlords see claims of intimate partner violence as unimportant and petty. As one landlord explained, “Like I tell my tenants: You can’t be calling the police because your boyfriend hit you again. They’re not your big babysitter.” Landlords hold abused tenants responsible not just for controlling their partners, but for doing so without involving the police. Landlords discouraged tenants from calling 911 and threatened tenants that calling 911 could result in eviction. For example, a landlord wrote a tenant, “[P]olice are not to be used to solve disputes and family problems. . . . The police are to notify me immediately if 911 is called [again]. . . . If the situation they are called for is deemed to be non-life threatening, I will immediately start the eviction process for the tenant or tenants where the problem originates from.”45
Nuisance laws create what women’s and gender studies professor Gretchen Arnold has called a double bind for tenants: “[I]f their abusers showed up at their apartments again, they would be evicted, but the women had no way to keep their abusers away without calling 911, which would itself trigger eviction under the nuisance ordinance.” One woman explained, “Well, it seem like with the nuisance thing, you have to deal with, you know, the situation like my ex-boyfriend, or whatever. [The landlord] come over and tell me I have to deal with that. Or just pray he don’t kill me or anything because if I call the police, they’re going to contact my landlord and then I’ll probably be homeless.”46 Notably, the vast majority of the tenants evicted for intimate partner violence in Milwaukee were not living with the partners who abused them. Only nine of the seventy-one cases in which landlords threatened or carried out evictions involved cohabiting couples.47
Sociologists Matthew Desmond and Nicol Valdez conclude, “The nuisance property ordinance has the effect of forcing abused women to choose between calling the police on their abusers (only to risk eviction) or staying in their apartments (only to risk more abuse). Women from black neighborhoods disproportionately face this devil’s bargain.”48 About half of the women in Arnold’s Saint Louis study were forced to move as a result of the laws—either because they had already been evicted or in order to avoid eviction.49
Eviction brings with it a host of other problems. Eviction is correlated with homelessness, material hardship, residential instability, job loss, depression, and suicide. Eviction keeps tenants from qualifying for public housing and from finding affordable housing in desirable neighborhoods. As one woman told Arnold, “[A] couple of people, when I tried to get an apartment, told me, ‘We see that there are some things in here about you calling the police.’ And they didn’t want to rent to me.”50 Women reported to Arnold that they had lost all of their personal possessions as a result of eviction and that eviction exacerbated preexisting physical and mental illnesses. The consequences of eviction can be so dire that Desmond and Valdez question whether reported declines in intimate partner violence owe more to the effectiveness of increased enforcement of the criminal law or to the unwillingness of people to report lest they lose their housing.
Protecting people subjected to abuse from housing instability using the law has had mixed results. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued a number of jurisdictions for misuse of their nuisance property laws in cases involving intimate partner violence, but those ordinances persist in many places. Lawyers have also argued that targeting women subjected to abuse violates the gender discrimination provisions of the Fair Housing Act. VAWA prohibits housing authorities, landlords, and owners of federally subsidized housing from using intimate partner violence as a justification for denial of housing, termination from a federally subsidized housing program, or eviction. There are few reported cases brought under VAWA, although one federal judge found that a woman could bring a claim based on VAWA’s housing provisions where the Zanesville Metropolitan Housing Authority allegedly failed to appreciate that the damage done to her housing unit was a result of intimate partner violence, made unfounded accusations that the woman herself caused the damage, attempted to evict her and her children, and provided inaccurate information about her to other potential landlords.51 A number of states have passed laws preventing private landlords from discriminating on the basis of intimate partner violence. But it is likely that people subjected to abuse continue to face adverse housing actions as a result of intimate partner violence, and it is impossible to know how often such actions occur. Moreover, such protections do not prevent landlords from using other justifications for barring residents from housing, even when those conditions (past history of eviction, poor credit history, criminal record) stem from intimate partner violence.52 People subjected to abuse could easily become “unhouseable” as a result.53
ECONOMIC POWER FOR PEOPLE SUBJECTED TO ABUSE
Women subjected to abuse want economic security: the ability to pay their monthly bills, meet their basic needs, and have money left over for entertainment or savings. As one woman explained, “I just want to be able to breathe.”54 Recognizing this desire for economic empowerment, antiviolence advocates have developed programs designed to improve women’s financial literacy, self-efficacy (the belief that a woman can be economically stable), and self-sufficiency. Most programs focus on teaching women basic financial skills, including goal setting and financial planning, managing cash flow, banking, and credit, and investing, as well as confronting the complex financial problems that come with intimate partner violence, including repairing damage to credit done by a partner. These programs are generally successful in improving women’s basic financial literacy and sense of economic self-efficacy and self-sufficiency. Most of the women participating in the Allstate Foundation’s Moving Ahead Through Financial Management program, for example, set financial goals, created a budget, and paid off debt; around a quarter of them started a retirement account.55 A similar financial literacy program, Redevelopment Opportunities for Women’s Economic Action Program (REAP), improved women’s confidence in handling financial issues, but their financial knowledge did not significantly increase. After completing REAP, women reported that they used their money differently, kept to a budget, tracked their spending, sought to repair their credit, attempted to reduce their debt, and saved more.
Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) were an essential component of REAP. Low-income families often lack access to employer-sponsored retirement plans or 401(k) plans; IDAs match the money that low-income families are able to save, enabling them to purchase a home, start a business, or finance a family member’s education. Matching funds for REAP IDAs came from a combination of government and private sector sources, and match incentives ranged from one dollar to two dollars for each one dollar saved, depending upon a woman’s household income. REAP IDA funds could be used to buy or repair a home, pay for education, start or support a small business, save for retirement, or purchase a car (something that most IDAs do not permit but that is essential for women attempting to leave violent relationships and establish economic independence). Participants were also permitted to access their own (but not matching) funds in case of emergencies. Monthly deposits of as little as $10 were required to participate in the program, and women could accumulate as much as $2,000 in savings and $4,000 in matching funds. Women involved in REAP saved an average of $87 per month, accruing an average total savings of $1,310. African American women, who started the program with much lower incomes than other participants, saved significantly less than other women enrolled in the program. The average woman reached her savings goal in nineteen months. Most participants used their accounts to purchase a car or pay for education. Participants in the IDA program reported improved financial management and restraint, which included