If there’s room.
The organization has 15 private apartment-style units for emergency stays that last between 30 and 90 days. There were more than 100 new admissions from January to November this year, and the need for a new shelter is proven every month, area leaders say. Over that same timeframe, more than 2,400 crisis calls were received, but they were only able to house less than 7%, according to the YWCA of Hamilton.
“YWCA has been here more than 125 years, supporting women, children, and families, keeping them safe,” said Executive Director Wendy Waters-Connell. “We will continue doing this work tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that, until this problem goes away. But we need the entire community to wrap their arms around us and these families to systematically change the conditions that lead to the continuous cycle of violence in our community.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
The YWCA of Hamilton constructed a new $11 million facility that includes the Dove House and 45 permanent supportive housing units. Before they opened in December 2022, the facility was filled.
The YWCA of Hamilton has tried to find a community to build another shelter for domestic violence victims, but Waters-Connell said, “We’re having a hard time finding safe, affordable housing for survivor families to go into. It continues to be a problem.”
Also known as intimate partner violence, domestic abuse is not caused by a single factor, according to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
“Instead, a combination of factors at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels can increase or decrease the risk of violence,” according to the CDC.
In Ohio’s 88 counties there are only 58 shelters, Mary O’Doherty, Ohio Domestic Violence Network executive director, said, and if there’s no room, many victims have no other options but to return to their abusers.
“There’s an awful lot of pressure on survivors of domestic violence to stay,” she said.
Reasons range, from being financially unable to leave to believing staying is better for their children, O’Doherty said. Landlords typically are reluctant to rent to survivors, O’Doherty and Waters-Connell said.
“The families that choose to come into shelter have no resources,” Waters-Connell said. “They are oftentimes folks who are not working and the head of the household was the only source of income. So they’re in a much more precarious situation.”
But they also said stigma is a real problem.
The YWCA of Hamilton is looking for a community to construct another shelter for domestic violence survivors, but Waters-Connell said “the stigma of not wanting to have domestic violence survivors near other neighborhoods, believing that it increases crime, which is not rooted in fact, but it is part of the problem.”
O’Doherty said there is “no data to support the idea that sheltering domestic violence survivors is going to bring violence to any community.”
Funding support is also an obstacle, she said. Ohio invests the least amount of money per capita in supporting victims of domestic violence than the five surrounding states, which advocates say puts victims in a potentially deadly situation.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
In fiscal year 2024-2025, Ohio spent 85 cents per capita on programs, while Kentucky ($3.06), Michigan ($2.39), Pennsylvania ($1.71), West Virginia ($1.41), and Indiana ($1.31) invested more, according to the ODVN.
“We’re fortunate in Ohio that we get $20 million,” O’Doherty said, “But it’s not enough.”
In the last fiscal year, there were two Butler County fatalities of the 157 domestic violence fatalities in Ohio, and under-investing in housing so survivors can escape the abuse could cause those numbers to rise.
“We’re still seeing more and more children who are impacted by this, which means that this cycle is going to continue to be self-perpetuating, because children who are exposed to domestic violence are much more likely to be revictimized later in life, choosing partners who will victimize them, or, in worst case scenario, becoming perpetrators themselves.”
About the Author
