Journal by a Women's Transition House Support Worker

Easter weekend just passed and the women celebrated with a big, home-cooked turkey dinner. Everyone was in the kitchen all at once, helping out and everybody ate together; the little ones in high chairs. We have a dining room table that seats eight: I love to see it full with women connecting, laughing and befriending one another. Many of the mothers at that Easter dinner had been given more than one extension. We emphasize that we are a program with a thirty-day stay. At the end of thirty days the woman is supposed to be prepared to leave but so often there is nowhere for her to go.

High rents and the rental housing shortage, low welfare and disability rates, the low minimum wage, and a lack of daycare and childcare create so few choices for single moms. When you combine that with the many issues faced by women with histories of abuse you come up with a pretty bleak picture. So often at the end of a thirty-day stay we find ourselves giving women extensions. We are faced with asking a woman to be homeless with her children or letting her stay on just a little longer.

So this weekend we had a few moms and little ones staying on just a little longer. It is so hopeful for them to have the support and company around the holiday. Holidays can be the hardest time for women fleeing abuse. It can be so lonely: many women don't have family they can connect with during holidays and so they find themselves pulled back to the abuser. Support at this time can be crucial to keeping women safe from abuse.

For one of the Moms it is probably her seventh stay with us. Something has shifted and it seems she is ready. She wants to file for a protective order for her and her child, go into treatment for her marijuana addiction and press charges. Her daughter has been staying with her sister since the relationship became out of control. But daughter is with Mom now, with us at the Transition House and doing well. Mom is moving on, we just had to patient with her and be there with support every time.