Transcript:

00:00:00.000 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: Welcome to On the Issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. Magazine, a show where we report, rebel, and you know we tell it just like it is. On this show, we center your concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality. So join me as we tackle the most compelling issues of our times. On our show, History Matters, we think about the past as we pivot to the future. As we mark Domestic Violence Awareness Month this October, we know there’s a long way to go when it comes to addressing the domestic violence crisis in our nation. From pandemic-era spikes and violence to the Trump administration’s recent budget cuts and their impact on support for women and girls experiencing domestic violence, how are advocates and policy experts addressing the ongoing crisis? 

And to help us unpack these concerns, I’m joined by very special guests. Joining me in this episode are Lauren Schuster. She is the Vice President of Government Affairs at Urban Resource Institute. She joined the Institute after serving as Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal for more than 11 years. And before that, she worked at the New York Public Interest Research Group. I’m also joined by Chris Negri. Chris Negri is the Associate Director of Public Policy at the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. Listeners, please sit back and take a very close listen.

I’m honored to be joined by you. Thank you both, Lauren and Chris, for being with us and to discuss these very important issues that are important that we keep at the forefront.

Domestic violence, what exactly does it mean? And how does it translate in these times? So I want to start off first with a question that, when it comes to domestic violence in the policy realm. What are some of the challenges that you see being faced in these contemporary times? And I’ll ask you that first, Lauren. What are the kinds of challenges that we see in the context of these times when it comes to furthering an agenda that focuses on domestic violence?

00:00:47.610 

Lauren Schuster: Dr. Goodwin, thank you so much for that question.So, it is important to note that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so it’s an opportunity to really shine a light on DB and gender-based violence in a way that we should be doing the entire year, but that we do in a really purposeful and intentional way in October. And I think one of the things we see here at URI, is really an incredible lack of focus on domestic violence as an issue that is impacting so many individuals. One in four women, 1 in 7 men, and it is disproportionately impacting women of color in the Black community and the Latin community. Here, in New York City, and really across the country, we see rates of violent crime coming down. And during the pandemic, DV rates increased by 12 percent. We all know that as people were trapped at home with their partners who were abusive, that DV only exploded. And while other rates have come down, domestic violence rates continue to remain stubbornly high, and that reflects a real lack of awareness, and a real lack of investment in comprehensive solutions designed to disrupt the cycles that fuel domestic violence. And those cycles are often intergenerational.

You see young people who are exposed to violence in their homes and in their communities. They’re 50 percent more likely to experience violence as adults, either as a victim or a perpetrator. And then you see people who have engaged in harming behaviors, so we refer to them as the harming party here at URI. So many of them have experienced trauma themselves. That is the underpinning of a lot of violent behavior, is unresolved trauma. And so at URI, we really work to provide individuals who have caused harm, with trauma-informed accountability programming. It helps them to understand why their behavior is dangerous, and it gives them tools to stop. We believe that if you sort of zoom out and view domestic violence as a major public health crisis instead of a very narrow public safety issue, that we can make impacts in a way that we haven’t seen before.

00:03:22.610

Dr. Michele Goodwin: So, Chris, hearing now what Lauren has mentioned, that domestic violence, we saw certain concentrations of it during the peaks of COVID, the concerns that what would have seemed as an arc towards greater education and greater education in our communities, resulting perhaps in fewer incidences of domestic violence, less of it in a spread. Lauren is telling a story about that’s anything but the truth, and that domestic violence remains an important concern in our society. Is this something that you are also seeing?

00:04:03.320 

Chris Negri: Yeah, I mean, in terms of the impact, Lauren has already painted a very vivid picture. I will just add a couple of figures there. So, specific just to California, there have been studies of the economic impact of intimate partner violence.

00:04:18.839

Dr. Michele Goodwin: A study out of Tulane and UCSD estimated the cost, just in California, of intimate partner violence is $73.7 billion. Okay, Chris, wait just one second there. Just to concentrate on that. Can you repeat that figure?

00:04:35.550 

Chris Negri: $73.7 billion. And that includes… You know, hospitalizations, it includes deaths, it includes incarceration, it includes…You know, all of the costs associated with the legal system.

So, you know, and if you take that figure and you compare it with the investment that the federal government and the state government in California put toward, domestic and sexual violence and other related issue areas, you know, it’s a pittance. So on the prevention side. If you just look at the amount that the federal government allocates toward domestic and sexual violence prevention.

00:05:22.910 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: On the domestic violence side,  $7.5 million last year went to state coalitions to do domestic violence prevention work.

00:05:31.900

Chris Negri: And on the sexual violence side, $61.75 million through the Rape Prevention Education Program.

00:05:40.980 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: And it’s not that those numbers are insignificant, Chris, right? I mean, you’re talking about tens of millions of dollars. It’s not that that’s insignificant. But what you’re also saying is that the scope and scale is so significant that even with those resources, they barely… it’s a pittance compared to the broader scope of the cost of the harms.

00:06:06.710

Chris Negri: Yes, exactly. And that funding level just results in domestic and sexual violence programs not being able to build out an infrastructure that would be conducive toward doing really robust prevention work. You know, being in schools, teaching students about healthy relationships and the signs of domestic violence, working with Parents and community members, you know, doing work to increase the, you know, economic well-being of families, which we know is associated with intimate partner violence.

It’s just not sufficient, really, to help us build out that kind of an infrastructure. And the only other thing I would mention on the intervention side, so on prevention, we’re seeing a lack of really sufficient investment. And on the intervention side, on the services for folks after they experience domestic and sexual violence. But we are seeing a very difficult environment as well. So in California, for the last 3 years, we have had to go to the state to ask for $100 million, in state-level investment just to maintain flat funding for programs serving victims of domestic, sexual violence, human trafficking, other issue areas. And if that state investment had not been allocated, then programs would have had to, you know, close, lay off folks, reduce their services. So the picture right now in terms of these programs being able to meet the very significant need is not the best picture.

00:07:52.310

Dr. Michele Goodwin: Let me pick up on that, continue with you, Chris, and I’ll turn back to you, Lauren, and that is a question with regard to the budget cuts coming from the federal government. You talked a bit about the state and California. I’m wondering- have the current administration’s budgeting cuts, the Trump administration’s budget cuts, and other actions impacted, then how these issues might be able to be addressed. And let me just pull from what we’ve recently seen in the 19th. And I’m quoting here that funding pauses, cuts, firings, and information purges have destabilized the infrastructure that helps victims of abuse. And at the same time, federal teams dedicated to preventing sexual violence are being decimated. Departments in charge of administering grants that fund shelters for those fleeing assaults have been deemed, quote, duplicative, DEI, or simply unnecessary. Chris and then Lauren, I’m wondering if you can speak to this, in terms of whether what’s happening outside of individual states is also having an effect.: In meeting the needs of intimate persons who’ve been, the victims of domestic violence, or the survivors, or intimate partner violence.

00:09:19.260 

Chris Negri: I will say, for the service providers that we work with, uncertainty, including the uncertainty that we’re in right now, particularly during… I mean, as we’re filming this, or we’re recording this right now, there’s a government shutdown. I mean, that dramatically affects the ability of programs to do their work and to plan. And that uncertainty has been there throughout this year, from, you know, the moment that federal grants were paused. To, you know, the rescission and clawback of certain grants over on the… over, at the Department of Justice. So, I mean, that is not good for survivors. We know that these agencies that serve you know, survivors of intimate partner violence are already operating on very lean budgets, and are already dealing with a very significant amount of unmet need. So right now, just with the status quo, you know, survivors, not all survivors are able to, access the services, that they need, and that is just because of the lack of investment. So anything that complicates that.

00:10:43.890 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: Only adds to it, exacerbates it.

00:10:47.780

Chris Negri: Yes.

00:10:49.230

Dr. Michele Goodwin: So, Lauren, I pick up on that same question with you, is, you know, from the perspective of the federal government, do you see certain rollbacks that now affect the kind of advocacy work that could be done? And I want to add to that in light of these funding cuts that Chris has talked with us about, and state and federal level, how exactly do committed advocates such as yourselves, how do you fight back?

00:11:19.840 

Lauren Schuster: So, Urban Resource Institute is the largest provider of DV shelter services in the country. We’ve been around for 45 years, and we have the capacity to provide a safe bed, to just under 4,000 individuals and many pets on any given night.

Sadly, the vast majority of the survivors in our shelter, they are children, just about 60 percent, and the impact of the actions of this administration since day one to today have created a chaos that Chris referenced that has made doing our work so much more challenging. Chris is right, we operate at the margins, whether you’re a large agency like you or I that has 24 shelters, or a smaller one that has 9 beds in a tiny county in upstate New York.

All of the changes, the backs and the fourths, with all of the policies that are happening on the federal level create a chaos that’s hard to operate in. And for our survivors, 100 percent of them rely on SNAP benefits for their food. And so the budget that was passed earlier this year is already catastrophic for these families. That’s now compounded by the shutdown and the impact that that will have on their ability to access food benefits and other benefits.

We are seeing furloughs at the Department of Justice and other agencies that administer grants, so you’re seeing a slowdown in funding. And this is creating an environment where providers don’t know what is legal today, whether it’s going to be legal tomorrow. We don’t ask questions when people come to us for help. We’re not asking them how they identify, we’re not asking them what their immigration status is, we’re asking them, how can we help? That is the most important question that we should be asking every survivor, and all of these policies are creating an incredible, incredible fear, and it very much mirrors the trauma that survivors experience on a very regular basis. 

We’re seeing things like the federal government threatening to pull transportation funding from New York for failing to comply with certain favored policies. And we’re seeing the administration say things like, survivors of violence won’t be able to receive federal funding if they can’t prove their immigration status, they can’t produce their documents. Our survivors, like survivors across the country, they leave with very little more than the clothes on their back. They are not looking for their passports, they are not checking, and in many cases, their abuser is holding onto those documents. And so, there is an environment now of tremendous fear, that is making very hard work, much more challenging.

00:14:30.490 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: On that note, just to further add to it, we have from Democracy Forward, which has been leading any number of lawsuits against the Trump administration and its recent executive orders, and I… I’m quoting to just further add to what you’ve just mentioned, Lauren. This is from just a few weeks ago, as they were making note that a court blocked the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful Restrictions on Violence Against Women Act grants.

And so, quoting from there, a federal court issued a preliminary order blocking the administration from enforcing many of the new unlawful restrictions on grants from the U.S. Department of Justice’s office on violence against women. And I think that many people would probably find that shocking, that grants that had been established specifically to support this matter, matters that would address violence against women. I mean, who would want violence against women? Intuitively, it should be that none of us would support violence against anybody, or patterns of violence against women, but that those grants were being blocked.

And the court’s decision halted what they described as dangerous new requirements that made it impossible for many grantees to operate legally or effectively, and that those restrictions threatened to cut off life-saving resources to survivors, especially those from marginalized communities. And that’s exactly what you were saying. And that many of these grants, it’s not as if it was kind of not known, or just in a kind of broader landscape and, oops, we forgot, but some very specific targeting of removing grant support for matters that address intimate partner violence and domestic violence.

00:16:27.230

Lauren Schuster: So, I… I would say two things to this. There is, a long history in this country of diminishing violence against women, and we see that in policy, we see that in action, we see that in the fact that as rates of other violent crime decline, rates of domestic violence, intimate partner violence continue to either rise or stay stubbornly flat.

And I think you are seeing leaders in this country, make statements diminishing domestic violence is something less than a criminal act, and that is dangerous. It is fatal for people who are looking.

00:17:07.099 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: Lauren, can you help to explain that? Because in an era of so much social media, there’s this… there is one aspect of this, which is that, well, threats that take place that… It’s… as long as the individual doesn’t articulate as really having an intent to follow through, then the person who is being threatened, in this case the woman, the child, etc, or the man shouldn’t be able to get a remedy. I mean, if the person can argue, well, I didn’t really intend to make you feel that way, even though my words may have said, I want to kill you, if I don’t really, you know, have it in my mind, then what are you complaining about?

00:17:50.600 

Lauren Schuster: So, it’s important to note that domestic violence, like many other forms of violence, is escalating in nature. So, what starts with a threat, then becomes something more, and it often ends in a fatality. And so, it is crucial, and it is the work that organizations like URI and so many of our partners across the country have been doing for decades to send the message to survivors that this is unsafe behavior, and that there is a safe place for you to go. And that’s the other point that I wanted to make, that you see all these headlines about funding restrictions and cuts to DV service providers, and, you know, immigration raids at DV shelters and other places. When a survivor is weighing whether or not to leave a dangerous and potentially deadly situation, that is one of the most challenging and fraught decisions and dangerous decisions, that they’re gonna make. And then they see these headlines they’re confronted with, is shelter safe, is the question, then, that they are forced to face. And it is undoing decades and decades of work, that we have done to say, yes, if you want help when you are ready and need help, we are here and we are safe.

00:19:08.530 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: Here, and if your doors are open, and doors may not be open, if the grant funding doesn’t come through, or if donors are not there. I want to just quote from you in an interview with Mother Jones just a couple months ago, because it speaks to these issues. The headline was, Republicans want to ban pets from domestic violence shelters, and you make a point that I think that probably people may not fully grasp. There’s a narrative, and I’m going to come back to you with this, Chris, as well, which is that there’s a narrative that is, look, if it’s so bad, you can just leave. If it’s so bad, just take your kids and leave. The abuser, if the abuser goes to work 9 to 5, then what’s the big deal? During that period of time, just go. And I think that what you’ve been doing, the work of Chris and others, has been to try to help socialize people to the realities of domestic violence, that it’s not just that cut and dry. 

So, you mentioned survivors won’t leave, they can’t leave, if they’re going to leave their pets behind. Something that people may not understand, but it’s something that you’ve mentioned, and you’ve said that pets are often the only source of unconditional love that our survivor experiences when they are in an abusive relationship. So many leave abusers with little more than the clothes on their back, their children, and their pets. And have them, be forced to make, and to have them make, make a decision to leave their pets behind is too much for them to bear. Can you just expound upon that just a little bit? I mean, I think that people who have pets can certainly feel the intimacy of that, but I think that probably people don’t think about those contexts when it comes to domestic violence.

00:21:06.080

Lauren Schuster: Most people don’t think about that. Here at URI, we work to remove barriers that survivors often face, in the… in the journey to access safety. And we found just about, you know, about 13 years ago now that one of the major survivor… one of the major obstacles and barriers to safety that survivors were telling us they faced was the fact that domestic violence shelters, shelters for families experiencing homelessness, were not pet inclusive. So if you were going to escape from a dangerous and abusive situation, you would have to leave your pet behind, give it to a family member, a friend, relinquish it somewhere.

Pets are a part of the family. I have cats, I’ve had dogs, and turtles, and fish, and you name it, I’ve had it, and I know that I could not bear to leave my animal behind. If I then had to leave knowing that I was leaving them in an unsafe situation where they were the object of threats or actual violence, which is the case, it would be an impossible decision, and URI did research, we partnered and we studied survivors, and 50 percent of them, in fact, said they could not or would not leave a dangerous situation if they couldn’t take their pets with them. And so, now, about 13 years ago, URI piloted the first pet-inclusive DV shelter. We did a small pilot in one of our shelters in Brooklyn, and since then, it’s grown, and 10 out of our DV shelters are fully pet-inclusive. Last year, we piloted the first, shelter, pet-inclusive shelter for families experiencing homelessness, and our goal is a fully pet-inclusive social services district here in New York City, and really across the country, by the year 2030. It is an important barrier to safety that we would love to remove.

00:22:53.510 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: I would love to come back to you on that. I’m going to turn to Chris and talk about immigration, but I think that you’re helping to socialize and build awareness about the fullness of the reality, the fullness of the person who find themselves in a situation of domestic violence, and that it’s not boilerplate, it’s not cookie cutter, that in having full, round lives, there are individuals who experience domestic violence. Who have their children, and children can be, because of having children, that can be used, weaponized by an abuser to keep a person from leaving, and the same is true with pets or other things, and it seems to me that there’s just this history of stereotype and stigmatization associated with people who experience domestic violence as if it is their fault, or if they don’t leave soon enough, it is their fault, and if only they changed their behavior, things would end up differently. Well, perhaps coming back to that, but Chris, I’m wondering, that in light of many of the actions that we are seeing right now, and amongst them, the concerns related to immigration, the concerns related to, individuals who are being, detained after appearing at courthouses, even at schools and churches, I’m wondering how domestic violence ends up being addressed when it’s intertwined with immigration issues, and I wonder if you might be able to expound upon that.

00:24:36.360 

Chris Negri: Yeah, well, I mean, in terms of… we’ve just talked about the things that survivors grapple with, that they consider, when they are making decisions over you know, whether to reach out for help, or whether to not. And immigration is one of those factors. An undocumented survivor will know, and often an abuser will say, you know, I can use your immigration status and have you deported, I can have your, you know, our children’s seized from you. It’s an element in the maintenance and extension of control. And what we know is that when undocumented survivors feel unsafe in reaching out for help, they’re going to remain in circumstances where they’re going to be in significant peril, and that’s going to, in turn, imperil all of us. 

So this is one of the reasons why in the past, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, courthouses, other areas like that have been designated as protected or sensitive locations. We want to preserve access to these places among all people. Because we know that when folks are not able to go to court to obtain a protective order, or to, you know, deal with a child custody case, you know, that’s not in the best interest of society. It’s not in the best interest of the survivor who might be imperiled. It might, you know, it’s not in the interest of the child. So these are very complex matters, and really, you know, our attitude is the safety of one is the safety of all. We want to live in a society in which survivors are not in fear when they reach out for help.

00:26:30.610  

Dr. Michele Goodwin: Well, in the Capitol Weekly, and here, I’m quoting an interview that you were in the Capitol Weekly, and you were explaining, you explained that you’ve begun to see a drop in, certain populations seeking services, and it’s otherwise unexplained, except that right now, there’s such a crackdown, and the fear that has been triggered with regard to immigration and ICE and for ICE entering, and some would argue, interfering, yes, with people’s daily lives. And you’ve said that we’ve heard from some of our agencies that they have observed decreases in demands for their services among certain clients.

You say that I’ve heard of survivors being less willing to show up to court in particular, which is concerning because that’s the place where one would file for a protective order or deal with a child custody case. So I wonder, Chris, how we further articulate or narrate those connections, because as you’ve said, it’s just not healthy for society. It’s not healthy for society when individuals are not able to vindicate their interest and get at least the minimal forms of protection.

00:27:57.410 

Chris Negri: Yeah, and I think, I mean, that is one of the reasons why this was… this was federal policy, to protect these areas. Because, I mean, it is in, as you said, it’s in everybody’s interest to ensure that domestic violence and sexual violence survivors are able to access the help that they need. An environment in which that can happen with impunity will imperil everyone.

And so that’s, you know, that’s the reason why our service providers, serve all survivors. And they do not discriminate in terms of the services that they provide, because domestic violence and sexual violence don’t discriminate.

00:28:39.810 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: So, I’m wondering, this… I toss this question out to both of you, what kinds of policy or legal changes are needed to support survivors, folks who are not yet survivors of domestic violence, what might, you know, what’s been on the policy agenda for the work that you’ve been doing?

00:29:01.710 

Lauren Schuster: I would say that one of the most, or perhaps the single most important thing that we can do to increase survivor safety is raise awareness. And so, for anybody who is listening, or who has experienced domestic violence, or who knows somebody who has, there is help available. The national hotline is 1-800-799-HOPE.

Or you can text the word BEGIN to 88788. It is critical, that survivors, people who are… who are not sure whether they’re experiencing domestic violence, that there is a place for them to call and get confidential information about the resources that are available to them in their communities. I think the other important thing, is what we talked about at the very beginning. It’s investing in robust, comprehensive… comprehensive youth violence prevention that’s community-based and grassroots, led by the people who live in the communities that are experiencing the highest levels of harm. It’s investment in programs that work with people who cause harm to help interrupt violence, and prevent that second incident, that repeat offense, that next survivor.

It’s also removing obstacles and barriers to accessing, safety, and so that’s ensuring that shelters are fully pet-inclusive and Chris mentioned earlier, the economic impact of domestic and gender-based violence on a societal level. It is also a significantly, financially expensive, ordeal to experience domestic violence. Nearly a hundred percent of survivors of violence have reported experiencing economic abuse, whether that looks like debt that was forced upon them that they didn’t consent to, or being prohibited from working. And they… many survivors cite this as the main reason that they stay in or return to a dangerous or violent situation. California has really, incredibly strong legislation in place, to protect survivors against coerced debt and economic abuse to help them to get out from under that debt and make it easier for them to access safety. New York State is looking to follow suit right now. There’s legislation before the governor, and we’re really hopeful for her to sign it, this year. But it’s… it’s really investing in a comprehensive suite of solutions, and we shouldn’t over-rely on the criminal legal system to answer all the questions, because we are not going to arrest our way out of domestic violence.

00:31:46.680 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: What a powerful point that there’s been so much attention on the criminal aspect. But the criminal aspect doesn’t resolve these issues, and hasn’t! It just simply hasn’t, and amongst the policy reform ideas that you spoke about, and efforts happen to be meeting people where they are, people who’ve been abusers, and working with them to, minimize, ameliorate, address what are those core types of issues. Chris, I’m wondering what it is that you’re seeing on the policy horizon, or that which you think we ought to invest or do more of a particular thing in order to really begin to fully address domestic violence and begin to create a community of healing rather than what it is that we have today.

00:32:43.830 

Chris Negri: Yeah, so, among the… so, obviously, as Lauren has said, funding for prevention and intervention, two… two things that I would mention that we haven’t, really discussed in depth. One, housing and homelessness. Domestic violence is maybe the principal cause of homelessness among women. In California. Most recent data that we have is 20 percent of, unhoused people have experienced domestic violence, and 7.8 percent of them, are actively fleeing domestic violence. Housing in California and nationwide, but especially, perhaps, in places like California, is extraordinarily unaffordable. And that is one of the elements, one of the principal components of a decision to stay in a domestic violence situation, often, is the cost of housing and the risk of homelessness, perhaps especially with children. So that data, on, domestic violence survivors experiencing homelessness, that same data shows that 24,000, and this is in 2024, 24,000 children of domestic violence survivors were homeless along with their parents. So, it’s an incredibly complicated calculation to make to leave a domestic violence situation, and we know that that is one of the elements that people consider. 

Another thing that I would bring up is the child welfare system, and particularly this concept, which, you know, we have in California law, and in many other states as well, of failure to protect. The idea that a domestic violence survivor, by virtue of experiencing domestic violence, perhaps in proximity to their child, in the home, that just the experience of that constitutes that survivor having failed to protect their child from witnessing domestic violence. And what we see is that often children of domestic violence survivors can enter the child welfare system and be separated from parents who have never touched them, just on those grounds. And what we’ve heard from service providers and survivors is that, obviously, that’s a major component in a survivor’s choice to stay in a domestic violence scenario… situation, because they’re not going to imperil their relationship with their children.

So, I just… the through line in both of those is that we should not be adding additional impediments to survivors seeking help. We should be investing in housing affordability and ensuring that children can remain with their domestic violence survivor parents, among other things.

00:35:38.240 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: In this episode, we’ve talked through any number of things. The funding cuts at state and federal levels. Stereotype and stigma, immigration concerns, and pets and what it is that keep people whole. And then what some of that and keeping folks whole, such as their pets, if they’re not able to take them to shelters, what that could mean in terms of staying in, a violent and abusive situation.

The time goes way too much quickly, and there’s so much more that I would love for us to get to, but so often our listeners are very interested in what are the points of hope that come out of what can be so fragmented and painful that’s taking place in our times, and I’m wondering what lessons can we see lessons towards hope that relate to your work? And I’ll start with you, Chris.

00:36:39.330 

Chris Negri: I mean, what gives me hope is, the fact that domestic violence survivors and service providers built this system from scratch, you know, with, like, paperclips and rubber bands on very, very tight budgets over decades, with very, very hard work, and they’re still in the fight, and the people who, do this work many of whom are survivors themselves. Continue to advocate and remain, you know, in these roles for decades and decades out of really a deep, profound commitment to trying to end domestic and sexual violence. So, that gives me hope, is just the people who do this work.

And the fact that we have come a great, distance from where we were in the 1970s, for example. This is a different society. This is a, you know, a different system that we have, and that is not an accident. That is a result of the really hard long work that advocates and survivors have put in.

00:37:58.370

Dr. Michele Goodwin: I will close this out with you, Lauren. This point of hope and silver lining…Where do you find it? Where do you, you know, what door do you open, in order to see on the other side that there is progress being made, and that there is something brighter ahead? Where do you find that?

00:38:21.880 

Lauren Schuster: We open the door to one of our shelters, and you hear the laughter of children who are healing. You see the bravery of the survivors who have made the most difficult decision that they will face in their lives to choose something better for themselves. You see their courage and their resilience, and you realize that we, too, can get through this.

And in the context of the recent history that Chris mentioned, understanding that VAWA is 20 years old. We have made tremendous progress in a very short period of time. And though this feels like a potentially dark time, we’re gonna get past this, just like our survivors have gotten through what is hopefully the worst part of their journeys, and we’ll come out on the other side better and stronger.

00:39:14.970 

Dr. Michele Goodwin: I want to thank you both for joining me and helping to lift up these important issues Lauren Schuster, and also I want to thank you, Chris Negri, for the important work that you do for staying in the fight, for being dedicated, for articulating all over the place, and being courageous yourselves, and brave enough to continue doing this important work. Thank you very much for joining me.

00:39:46.540 

Chris Negri: Thank you.

00:39:48.570 

Lauren Schuster: Thank you.

Dr. Michele Goodwin: 

Guests and listeners, that’s it for today’s episode of On the Issues with Michele Goodwin, and I want to thank my guests for joining us, and being part of this critical and insightful conversation. 

And to our listeners, I thank you for tuning in for the full story. We hope you will join us again for our next episode, where we will be reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is, as usual. It will be an episode you will not want to miss. And for more information on what we discussed today, head to MsMagazine.com, and be sure to subscribe.

And if you believe, as we do, that women’s voices matter, that equality for all persons cannot be delayed, and that rebuilding America being unbought and unbossed, and reclaiming our time, are important, then be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to On The Issues with Michele Goodwin and Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Stitchers, wherever it is that you listen to your podcast. We are ad-free, and reader supported. Help us reach new listeners and bring the hard-hitting content you’ve come to expect by rating, reviewing, and subscribing. Let us know what you think about our show, and please support independent feminist media. 

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This has been your host, Michele Goodwin, reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is. On the Issues with Michele Goodwin is a Ms. Magazine and Ms. Studios production. Michele Goodwin is the executive producer of Ms. Studios. Our producers for this episode are Roxy Szal, Oliver Haug, Mariah Lindsay, and Allison Whalen. The creative vision behind our work includes art and design by Brandi Phipps, editing by Natalie Hadland, and music by Chris J Lee. Our intern is Emersen Panigrahi.