Featured Program: Home Free
On any other day, Angie might have enjoyed the view from the helicopter she was flying in high above the city of Portland. Below her stretched Oregon’s Willamette River and a maze of Portland’s tree-lined streets. The helicopter gently set down on the hospital’s rooftop landing pad overlooking the city, and Angie, strapped to a stretcher, was wheeled into the emergency room. Angie lay comatose, covered in bruises―and seven months pregnant with her second child. She had been beaten by her boyfriend to a state of unconsciousness as their 2-year-old son had looked on.
For Angie, this abuse had almost seemed normal. Her middle-class upbringing hid behind it a volatile family environment where verbal, mental and physical abuse was commonplace. The only saving grace was her brother Luke, who encouraged Angie to double up her classes so that she could graduate high school a year early with the hopes of moving away from a painful home environment. At 17, she headed to college in California - on her own.
But the freedom she had craved was not what she expected. “I took a leap to take complete control of my life,” Angie remembers. “But it turned out I wasn’t ready.” Drinking and partying took the place of studying and going to class, and facing academic failure for the first time in her life, Angie decided to take a break from school and work for a while.
She dropped out, returned to Oregon and found a job. She met a man who seemed perfect―at first. He wanted to spend every single moment with Angie, but it wasn’t long before Angie felt uncomfortable at how smothering and overprotective he had become. He continually grilled her about fellow coworkers―male coworkers― and acted incredibly jealous. And then, Angie began to hear the same words so common during her childhood: “You’re stupid. You’re worthless. You’re unlovable.”
The thought of leaving her boyfriend entered Angie’s mind, but then she discovered she was pregnant. She wanted this new life to grow up in a stable family with two parents. But after she gave birth to their son Aidan, her boyfriend began spending days and weeks away from her. When he was around, the abuse and controlling behavior continued. He called Angie at work to make sure she was where she said she would be. “Where have you been?” he demanded if she arrived home minutes later than he thought she should have. “You’ve been cheating on me, haven’t you?” They went to a counselor at Angie’s urging, but her boyfriend told her it was a stupid idea. “This is pointless,” he said. “If you just stopped doing things that make me angry, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
Estranged from her family and isolated from friends, Angie had no one in her life, except an abusive partner. She began to blame herself for the problems they were having. And then, she received word that Luke, stationed thousands of miles away in Iraq, had been killed in action. Remembering how Luke had always encouraged her, Angie reenrolled in college to complete her degree, hoping this would be the key for her to leave an abusive relationship and provide for herself and Aidan. But one day, a few weeks into the winter term, her boyfriend cornered her when she came home from class.
“You’re not going back to school tomorrow,” he said. “You’re not spending any time with me, and you’re using school as an excuse.”
Angie tried to move past him, but his hands grabbed her long dark hair, pulling her back toward him. And then, he beat her so severely that she had to be airlifted to a Portland hospital. When Angie regained consciousness, a nurse pressed a business card in her hand, saying, “I understand what happened to you. Please, call this number.” The card was for Home Free, Volunteers of America Oregon’s domestic violence intervention program.
A few days later, Angie met Nancy Atwood, a Home Free advocate who helped her develop a plan for leaving her abuser, connected her and Aidan with counseling services, and helped her secure safe, permanent housing away from her abuser. Angie pressed charges against her boyfriend and he was arrested. “Nancy helped me realize that I am not responsible for another person’s negative actions upon me,” Angie said.
With Volunteers of America’s help, Angie and Aidan moved into their own home, a month before little brother Liam arrived. A week after Liam’s birth, Angie returned to college, completing the term with a 4.0 GPA. Angie’s life is now a happy blur of caring for a one-year-old and an energetic toddler, attending college and maintaining court dates.
In 2008, she shared her story at the Democratic National Convention in front of an audience that included former President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Michelle Obama, giving the issue of domestic violence a real face― a face of survival.
Home Free
When the time came for the selection committee to choose recipients for the Volunteers of America/Annie E. Casey Family Strengthening Awards Program, Home Free the domestic violence intervention program operated by Volunteers of America Oregon was on the top of the list.
Home Free’s model provides for survivors’ immediate safety needs through a motel vouchering program, expanding the emergency housing options in our community. Better access to domestic violence services is possible through advocates stationed in community-based settings such as the courthouse, child welfare and self-sufficiency offices, and the domestic violence unit of the local police bureau.
Critical to the program’s model is a commitment to stay involved with families and focus on needs that persist well beyond flight from immediate danger. Home Free’s “Housing First” program assists survivors in obtaining housing and helps with rent, utilities, and other costs of setting up and stabilizing a home. Of equal importance, advocates work actively with each survivor for as long as two years, helping them navigate through issues involving law enforcement, child welfare and civil legal processes. Services are aimed at reducing the vulnerability to return to an abusive partner by helping survivors establish lasting safety—a life no longer defined by domestic violence.
Twenty-one hard working staff members assisted by 30 volunteers keep the program running. Volunteers play a variety of roles that include staffing the crisis line, co-facilitating support groups, helping in the restraining order advocacy program at the courthouse and supporting Home Free’s children’s programs.
Home Free has helped thousands of domestic violence survivors thrive.
