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"Our Room Is the World."

Features (Issue #3 TBA)

Cover Story Issue #2

"No Cover Girl: Charlyne Yi on Sex, Drugs, and 'Dirty Dancing'"

BY JENNIFER DAWN ROGERS
photos by Tommy Shih

Charlyne Yi isn’t your typical cover girl.

For starters, there’s her headshot—a photo that a friend snapped of her making a funny face. When asked about it, Yi immediately launches into an impression of her headshot, raising her brow and breaking into a goofy grin. The look does not scream “America’s Next Top Model” as much as it does “America’s Most Wanted.” Then there’s the matter of her shoes—scruffy, two-tone saddle ­shoes, the formal footwear worn by little girls. Only Yi never wore them as a kid, which could be why she sports them now. “[My mother] never let me [buy saddle shoes],” she says. “I wore Payless canvas shoes—we were poor.”

And I haven’t even gotten to the crotch shots yet. Unaccustomed to wearing skirts, Yi often sits with her legs splayed and her hemline hiked up around her waist, unwittingly flashing more people than Paris Hilton on a Saturday night.

But there’s more than one reason why Yi graces this cover—and scored a coveted supporting role in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, one of the most successful recent comedies to come out of Hollywood. The 24-year-old isn’t just an actress and a comedian (she’s a regular at the Los Angeles branch of the comedy club, Upright Citizens Brigade). She’s also a writer (her 2009 film Paper Heart won a screenplay award at Sundance), a musician (her band is called, of all things, “The Glass Beef”), a painter, and a poet. In an exclusive interview, Yi opens up about her relationship with Michael Cera, what it was like to “Dirty Dance” with Channing Tatum, and how she channeled her inner stoner for the chance to get “Knocked Up.”

HWJ: You have more hyphens than Jennifer Lopez: comedian-musician-writer-actress-painter. Are we missing any?

CY: I’m going to try to write a poetry book.

HWJ: Have you always aspired to be a sextuple threat?

CY: I don’t know… I never really thought about it. When I was a kid, I went through phases. I wanted to be a dentist because I liked picking at my teeth, but I didn’t really want to pick at other people’s teeth. And then I wanted to be an archeologist, but I was afraid of curses. And then I wanted to be an astronaut, but I was afraid of heights. Everything that I wanted to be was contradicted by the reality of the world—besides, the curses. [Laughs] I don’t know if they’re true. I wanted to be a lot of things, but I think I have ADD or something. I want to paint—now I’m bored with that, now I’m going to write.

HWJ: So from a young age, it sounds like you’ve had a lot of interests. Did your parents encourage you to explore all these creative outlets?

CY: I think so. They supported me when I quit college. They said, “As long as you’re doing what you want.” And then they cursed and said, “And as long as we don’t see you f---ing up, we support you.”

HWJ: Your parents sound pretty cool.

CY: Yeah, I think it’s because my mom was raised in the Philippines until she was in her teens. They lived in this swamp-type area. They had only three pairs of underwear and would wash them and run in the mud with no shoes. And my dad was [was raised] on a ranch in Mexico. They grew up in poverty, so they’re like, “You only have one life, why not take advantage of it and do what you want?”

HWJ: You were born and raised around Los Angeles. How did that influence your decision to get into show business?

CY: I was born in Los Angeles and lived there until I was four. And then [we] moved to Fontana [California] and [I] was raised there most of my life. [Fontana] is a very suburban, dirty town with chickens and truck drivers. I actually really liked living there. Now I don’t want to live there because I don’t like the wind and the sand and the smell of chicken poop. I really enjoy living here [in Los Angeles] even though there’s a lot of pollution. I prefer pollution over chicken poop. I think with Fontana, there weren’t that many options for what to do with your life. A lot of times, you feel lost after getting out of high school. A lot of my friends either went to college, or just got day jobs, or got into drugs, or became homeless, or got pregnant. So those were the options. I thought I’d try college for a bit, and then I didn’t like college and knew I wanted to perform.

HWJ: Paper Heart, the film you co-wrote and starred in, is about your quest to discover if true love exists. What inspired you to take on the dreaded “L word”?

CY: The idea came when I was nineteen. People would just open up to me at bars where I would perform. And I wasn’t even old enough to be in a bar, but I’d perform there. Just random strangers would open up to me about love. Around that time, too, I was wondering how you date in the real world. I’m not in college anymore. I hang out with mostly older males—how do you meet new people around your age? I would ask other comedians about it, and then I would tell somebody else the story. It almost became this thing about storytelling. There are so many movies about love—what if there was one about actual, true love stories?

HWJ: You’re right, there are a lot of movies about love, so your film could have come off as cliché, but your approach, which combines narrative with documentary, is really refreshing. How did you come up with it?

CY: I wanted to do a straight documentary actually, but then I met up with Nick [Jasenovec, her friend and the director]. He said, “Oh, it would just be like a hour and half of these stories?” I was like, “Yeah!” He said, “Ideally, it would be great if you experienced it firsthand and we would see growth within your character in real life.” So we did a combination of both.

HWJ: Did you want to cast Michael Cera as the love interest from the start?

CY: We didn’t—we made a list of young people we kind of knew or were friends with who might not want to get paid that much. [Laughs] And also who would be willing to play a character named [after them], which is kind of risky. We went through a list of people, and then Nick suggested Michael. I knew that he acted, but I’d never seen anything that he’d done. When I finally watched his stuff, I thought he was so natural. In “Arrested Development,” he was so good at keeping grounded. He was Nick’s first choice. So I asked him [Cera] to do the movie, but I didn’t articulate the idea very well. He said, “Umm, I don’t know about that.” And then I told Nick what happened. And then Nick had to re-pitch it … and it worked out in the end.

HWJ: A few tabloids reported that you dated Michael Cera and that he recently broke up with you. Is there any truth to the rumors?

CY: I wish I would have just started crying right now. [Laughs] I made up a rumor while on tour that I used to babysit him, and I saw it on TV. When people act together in movies, [others] make the assumption, “Oh, are they dating? They’re hanging out!” And what’s strange, too, is that our movie is kind of anti that, because [in Paper Heart] what ruined [our onscreen] relationship is the cameras. After watching the movie, for [the public] not to understand that means they don’t get it.

HWJ: You made your big screen debut in Knocked Up, directed by Judd Apatow who is known for making “dude-centric” comedies. Was being on set like being handed the keys to the boys’ locker room?

CY: I’ve been friends mostly with guys throughout my life, so I never thought about them being guys. I was used to it. I was only supposed to be there for one day, but they kept me around the whole week and let me hang out. Martin Starr ended up being one of my best friends.

HWJ: So what you’re saying is that you’re used to being in the boys’ locker room?

CY: Yeah! I actually wanted to play football in high school, but I was afraid they might break me.

HWJ: What was Judd Apatow like as a director?

CY: I’d never worked with anyone before, so I didn’t know how directing worked or what would happen. I was just sitting on the couch, saying my lines really badly. I didn’t know why he wasn’t in the same room, but he was watching from a monitor in the other room. He came in and was rubbing his head. He said, “Can you do what you did in the audition?” I had to improvise at the audition. He said, “You know, let’s just have fun. I’m going to let the camera roll for ten minutes. Just say any dumb stuff you can think of. You’re a stupid stoner.” I never admitted to them that I’d never been high before.

HWJ: If you’d never been high, how did you channel your inner stoner?

CY: I think (1) all my friends get high and (2) I constantly got accused of being high in high school because I laugh a lot and I’m always tired.

HWJ: The Dirty Dancing spoof you did for MSN Cinemash was hilarious. How did you get Channing Tatum to agree to star in it with you?

CY: I’m actually a really big fan of his. I saw two of his movies—She’s the Man, which is a really cheesy movie but he’s really funny in it, and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which he’s so scary in.  I got his e-mail from my agent, and I wrote him to ask if he’d ever want to shoot a short. And we sent him our movie [Paper Hearts]. He liked our movie a lot, so he said that he’d love to. Then, we got asked to do something for Cinemash. They asked, “What movie do you want to do?” I said, “I’ve always wanted to do Dirty Dancing. I love that movie.” He [Channing] knows how to dance and he’s strong, so he can lift me. I asked him about it. He said, “I love it! I’ve always wanted to play Johnny Castle.” He’s the nicest guy. He came to my house to practice. He lifted me in the air and I was almost touching the roof because he’s so tall.

HWJ: Is “Dancing with the Stars” in your future (seeing that you already danced with a star)?

CY: That’d be really fun, but I get scared of reality shows. I actually took a hip-hop class inspired by Step Up 2. I was dreadful. I kept hoping I’d be that kid that’s bad at first, but then she wins them over. But I only went for one day.

The Warm-Up

JENNIFER DAWN ROGERS
A graduate of Harvard University and a former film development executive, Jennifer cooks and writes in Los Angeles.  In 2009, she launched her blog Domestic Divas (www.domesticdivasblog.com), which focuses on local, organic cooking and wine reviews.  She is currently writing her first novel. E-mail: domesticdivasblog@gmail.com

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Exclusive Interview

"Thinking out of the Service-Provision Box:
Jennifer Rose Talks about Ending Violence against Women"

BY CARMEN GOLAY-SWIZDOR
photos by Rita Coury

Talk story with Jennifer Rose for an hour, and you will want to go do something radical.  Perhaps you will feel motivated to make the world a safer, more just place for women and girls, as Rose has been doing for almost twenty years. Maybe you will feel angry that there is still so much work to be done. You may find her supply of positive energy is contagious. Or you may just feel lucky that such a powerful advocate and organizer is here, on our island, and that the reason she must talk so fast is because there are only so many hours in a day and so much work to get done.

Rose is the ultimate multitasker, working and volunteering on and off the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) campus to end gender-based violence: she serves UHM as Gender Equity Specialist; she is Chair of the Hawaii Bar Association’s Diversity, Equality and Access to Law Committee; she sits on Supreme Court Committee on Equality and Access to the Courts as well as the Commission on Access to Justice/Overcoming Barriers Committee; and she is on the board of Hawaii Women Lawyers. Everything Jennifer Rose does works towards her mission to provide access to justice and prevent violence against women.

Despite her unbelievably busy schedule, Rose found an hour to talk with HWJ about her work at UHM, what brought her to this place in her life, and some lessons she’s learned about community organizing, prevention over intervention, and activism.  

HWJ: Can you tell us more about your position as UHM’s Gender Equity Specialist? For example, why was the position created and how has it changed over time?

JR: The position was created 14 years ago. It grew out of students struggling with issues of sexual harassment and not having anywhere to get help.  Student affairs at that time advocated for this position, which was supposed to give students dealing with sexual harassment some power and for them to have an advocate to help them through the grievance process. The position still is supposed to focus on “risk reduction” and “prevention” in regards to sexual harassment, so I work under specific policies: the sexual-harassment policy and the sexual-assault policy.

When I came in, I recognized a couple of things. There were gaps in what victims needed, like advocacy and case management. Also, there was no precise gradation to sexual harassment, and often we are actually dealing with sexual violence and coercion. Those kinds of cases are different: the sexual-harassment cases are less egregious, and these other people need even more help. This office serves [UHM] students, staff, and faculty. [The University is] like a small city, and I had about 88 cases in one year, did 50 trainings—and that’s not counting community trainings. Technically, I don’t take domestic-violence cases, but because I have some expertise, people end up referring [these cases] to me, anyway. But it does cross over because when you think about an “ex,” what you are getting is often unwanted and sexual in nature. It is often sexual harassment. I also have been working more on the prevention side of things and just finished up a series of trainings with the football team on [their] rights and responsibilities. Because I’m this legal person, I can tell them what happens in a criminal court setting—I’ve taken real cases and I don’t BS them. They get to see me as a resource and actually want to attend trainings.

HWJ: Why did you take this position? What previous life experience brought you to this point?

JR: I decided to go to law school when I was 19 because I was sitting on the Chancellor’s Affirmative Action Committee at UCLA, I was a woman of color, and I was invisible. So I said, I have to go to law school and get these credentials—it’s sad that that’s the way the world is, but it’s true. [With a law degree I could] do transformative work and institutional change. Law ended up being the vehicle to do social-change work. [After law school,] I ended up not regretting it because it was true, doors were open to me that would have never been open before, and [these doors] allowed me to have a voice where I never did. I actually wanted to go to film school. I mean, if you want to do social change, that’s a powerful way to do it—art! That might be the one regret that I have. I have now been in this work for so long that I’ve done things on so many levels: microadvocacy, macroadvocacy, legislative, all of it. It almost doesn’t matter what level you are working at. What’s important for the movement is that we place people in the right places, doing what they care about.

HWJ: Can you talk about what you see at the University of Hawai‘i in terms of sexual violence? Has there been a lasting impact since the 2006 Declaration of Rape-Free Zone?

JR: I think [the declaration] was a really courageous thing to do, and there have been some lasting impacts for students who were involved at the time—such as [for] those who chose to do this kind of work or chose to further it in some way, students who have collaborated and have been trying to connect other social-justice movements with violence against women. I think to declare UH a Rape Free Zone was shining a light on something that was really important. I don’t think the number of cases has changed; institutionally, it’s going to take more. I think what we need is a student movement that is real, with energy that is coming from them. We don’t have that yet.
What I see is so pervasive, and I knew that from the other world I had been working in. I’d been doing violence against women work for 18 years, but here, for some reason, I didn’t expect for it to be as bad. It manifests itself in different ways, and what is troubling is the normalization of sexual violence. All that time working in domestic violence, we focused on the men as batterers. And here, without blaming the women, there are women saying to each other, “Well, you know, he just grabbed your ass. Why would you report something like that? It’s not a big deal.” That sort of minimizing is so prevalent. It doesn’t ever go away for the person who was victimized or humiliated. We know all the various ways things come out for people who have been victimized and who have survived stalking, domestic violence, or rape. Some of the cases are not as egregious, but some of them are. It has been really interesting being here and seeing all these intersections [as well as] seeing how compartmentalized the movement has been through funding and other reasons: Here is the Domestic Violence piece, here is the Sexual Assault piece, [etc.]. Not much of it is talking to each other or recognizing how powerful we would be if we all worked together. If we actually care about ending [violence against women], we can’t be spending all this time on making intervention better.

HWJ: You've done a lot organizing students at the University of Hawai‘i’s Richardson School of Law. Why do you think that is so important? 

JR: In the legal community, I do a lot of volunteer work. The reason I do so much work with the law students is because I feel that I have a responsibility to help other young women think about the ways they can do social-change work. I had that privilege when I was going to school at UCLA. I was being taught by some of the best critical-race theorists; I was really lucky. I had some experiences that showed me people were being hurt by a system, but I didn’t have an academic framework to understand it. That led to me going to Legal Aid and working with Head Start moms. [I was] supposed to be doing a “family-law” piece with them [but] all they wanted to talk about was the violence in their lives. They needed a culturally specific place to talk about domestic violence. I want to help others going into law figure out those connections.

HWJ: What are some of your lessons learned? Both from your work with UHM during the past three years and working in many other communities?

JR: I spent a lot of the previous ten years on just intervention in domestic violence- the criminal and legal proceedings which happens with a woman and her children after the violence has already happened.  And specifically, the latter stage of intervention—the band-aid of family court and restraining orders, which people really need, but all this is at the very tail end. It is frustrating for [advocates to wonder] why are we at the end of this? When you look down, you see these women falling off a cliff. [Draws on paper.] We are here at the bottom of the cliff she has just fallen off, with our ambulance. It’s great, it’s shiny, we have better tools, better medicine, and it’s faster. Over the years, we start thinking—why don’t we build a net so she doesn’t fall off? And then, why does she get near the cliff in the first place? Who needs to be involved with figuring that out? These are questions I’ve been asking myself over the past three years, in part because of my work here but also because of my work in communities. That’s the philosophical approach I’ve taken, my lessons learned, and my strategy. For me, the lesson is that the process is just as important as the result. That’s the most important thing I’ve ever learned. It’s not always the outcomes, it’s [about] how you got there. So in this analogy of a woman falling off a cliff, and we advocates and legal people coming in our ambulance to save her after the fact, we have to ask: If she were living in a village that is not even near this cliff, what is happening there that is making her go toward that cliff?  What is the process that happens so she is ending up at the bottom? We need to get there to make sure she and other girls and sisters are not going there.
[Rose gives credit to Neil Halifax, MD, for the analogy.]

HWJ: Say you were asked “How will you end violence against women? What are the steps?” What would you answer?

JR: I think I would say look at all the different models, the public-health model, the legal model—ok, not the legal model.

HWJ: Ha! So says the lawyer ...  

JR: [laughs] It’s more of the how you get there. Some states have articulated that you need good leadership, but no one is talking about how to get there—How do you do good capacity building?
As an example, [while] working with Chuukese women recently through a friend at her church, the question was not “What are we going to train on?” My questions are always “What are we asking the community to do? Can a community come to the table and feel safe enough to create their own agenda, on their own terms?” But do we [advocates/professionals] even know how to do that? Some women in the communities I have met are [asking]: Help me learn how to run a meeting. How do I talk to them about violence against women? [They’re saying,] I have a lot of power, I’m the pastor’s wife or whoever they are, I’m a gate keeper, train me to do run a meeting. We need a plan on how to build the capacity and skills of leaders already in communities.  Maybe communities have their own stories on what interventions have worked for them, and we have much to learn.

HWJ: What would you say to someone outside the Violence against Women movement on what they might do?

JR: Find what you care about, do your homework, and then work on it. I would like to talk to all the other young women who show up at events like the MLK parade and talk to them about what they are passionate about, help them find their place. How can we nurture effective social-change agents? In Hawai‘i, all our social-justice movements are so fragmented, and activists are stretched too thin. We are not intentional about how we get together to talk about issues and then to debrief—which goes full circle back to my life’s lessons about how important the process is.

GET INVOLVED:
Learn about gender-based violence at the National Network to End Domestic Violence www.nnedv.org.

For the international network, see http://www.unifem.org. Donate your old cell phone for a woman who needs safety: http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/CallToProtect/index.cfm for more information.

PACT Hawaii has many domestic-violence programs throughout the state, including shelters and family-visitation centers: see www.pacthawaii.org for more information.

Legal Aid Hawaii always has a need for volunteers to help children going through the court system after violence: visit www.legalaidhawaii.org for more information.

Tell a story, make art, or just help out with Girl Fest Hawaii 2010. Find out more at www.girlfesthawaii.org.

................................

CARMEN GOLAY-SWIZDOR
Carmen grew up in rural Iowa and studied sociology and women’s studies in London and New York.  Ending violence against women has been part of her life for about 12 years, from youth shelter work to state domestic-violence coalitions.  She currently works in youth development and finds time to write when the baby and dogs are sleeping.

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Local Feature

"Rooms of Their Own: How Keeping Survivors of Domestic Violence Housed
Results in Better Health"

BY TATJANA JOHNSON
photos by Rita Coury

Hoa, a Vietnamese woman in her sixties, contacted a legal services provider after her husband filed for divorce.1 When I answered, Hoa spoke only enough English to tell me she needed an interpreter. I took her application and asked all the routine questions: “What day were you married? Do you have any children? What are your assets?” However, when I came to the point on the questionnaire about domestic violence, I was not prepared for her answers.

“Have you ever called the police?” I inquired. Hoa said she had called once, but her husband hung up the phone after breaking through the sliding glass door separating them. When 911 called back, he told them the call had been a mistake. The interpreter paused as he translated Hoa’s tale to me, then relayed that her husband had pushed her back on the couch and raped her.

Hoa said she never had any control over her arranged marriage. She did not want a divorce. She had no income. She had no family on O‘ahu. She had nowhere to go but the streets.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS A PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM

“If [domestic violence] were an infectious disease, we would have a treatment center in every neighborhood.”2

Homeless domestic violence survivors experience disproportionately poor health. Hawai‘i law defines domestic violence as “physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or the threat of imminent physical harm, bodily injury, or assault, extreme psychological abuse or malicious property damages between family or household members.”3 Hoa came to America hoping to start a new life with her husband only to join the twenty-five percent of American women who have experienced domestic violence in their lifetime.4

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has stated, “Violence against women is a substantial public health problem in the United States.”5 For example, during a separate incident of abuse, Hoa’s husband punched her hard enough to leave her permanently blind in one eye. Battered women have “more physical health problems and have a higher occurrence of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide attempts than do women who are not abused.”6 A CDC survey found that women “who have experience domestic violence are 80 percent more likely to have a stroke, 70 percent more likely to have heart disease, 60 percent more likely to have asthma and 70 percent more likely to drink heavily than women who have not experienced intimate partner violence.”7 Battered women also suffer from a plethora of mental-health conditions, including anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder.8

Hoa survived the violence. However, domestic violence is often lethal. Forty to fifty percent of all murders of women in the United States are domestic-violence homicides.9 In 2005, the FBI reported that 976 women were victims of domestic-violence homicide, out of a total of 1,158 female victims of homicide nationwide.10 That means, on average, three women a day are killed as a result of domestic violence.

Hawai‘i has seen a growing number of domestic-violence cases resulting in death. As of March of 2010, five people have died as a result of domestic violence.11 The Attorney General’s Office reported Hawai‘i averaged “nine domestic violence-related murders a year” from 1996 to 2006.12

ONE FAMILY’S STRUGGLE TO FIND HOUSING ON O‘AHU

A transitional shelter posted a ten-day eviction notice on Sarah’s rental unit in West O‘ahu.13 The shelter evicted Sarah for failure to pay the program fee, which was $500 per month. Sarah said plenty of other residents had not paid rent in months but had been allowed to work out a payment plan.

Sarah moved into the shelter receiving only $500 a month from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. She admitted she had not paid the program fee for the two months that she and her child lived at the shelter, but how could she? Sarah spent her monthly welfare assistance on her five-year old child and setting up her new home after living on the beach.

Sarah said the real reason is the shelter wanted her to leave her boyfriend, who had housed Sarah and her child occasionally when they were homeless. Although Sarah told her boyfriend to stay away from her shelter, the case manager demanded she get a restraining order against him or be evicted. Sarah confessed she had been in violent relationships before but that her current boyfriend was not as bad as some of the others.

Unfortunately, Sarah’s story is not unique. The statistics are harrowing. While one in four women in the United States have experience domestic violence, some cities report almost “one-hundred percent of homeless women have experienced domestic or sexual violence at some point in their lives.”14 Various studies across America indicate that between twenty-two percent and fifty-eight percent of homeless women reported becoming homeless as a direct result of domestic violence.15

Hawai‘i’s isolation in the Pacific has not shielded Hoa and Sarah from abuse. The Hawai‘i State Coalition against Domestic Violence conservatively estimated in a 2005 report that 22,000 adults in the state experience domestic violence every year.16 A joint University of Hawai‘i and Attorney General’s report concluded that 44,000 local children are exposed to domestic violence annually.17 Furthermore, the Honolulu Advertiser compared homicide statistics and concluded: “Even though Honolulu is one of the safest major U.S. cities in terms of violent crimes overall, the state almost every year since 1997 has topped the national average in domestic violence homicides per capita.”18 Domestic violence is a reality in Hawai‘i—and a life-threatening fact of life for Hoa and Sarah.

SIGNIFICANT HEALTH DISPARITIES BETWEEN HOMELESS AND HOUSED WOMEN

Homelessness only widens the gap of health inequity for Hoa and Sarah. In a recent survey conducted by the University of Hawai‘i’s Burns School of Medicine, the homeless on O‘ahu “were 3 times likely more likely than the general population of O‘ahu to rate their health as fair to poor, despite the fact that 77% of interviewees had medical insurance and 66% a regular health care provider.”19 Homeless men and women have higher rates of premature death, hypertension, cardiac failure, infections, diabetes, arthritis, dental problems, and mental illness.20

Homeless women are particularly vulnerable to health disparities. One study focusing on homeless mothers like Sarah found that they frequented the emergency room and “were significantly more likely to be hospitalized than housed mothers.”21 Homeless mothers were also more likely than those who are housed to report “higher stress levels, avoidant behavior, and anti-cognitive coping strategies.”22

Sarah’s child is at risk as well. For Sarah to feed her child three healthy meals a day while living homeless and impoverished on the beach is an impossible task. She has no access to refrigerators and kitchen facilities. Thus, the only alternative is fast food and packaged meals. Indeed, a study discovered that although homeless moms and their children were found to consume less food than the housed population, they eat more undesirable fats, which leads to “increased risk for chronic disease and compromised growth and development for children.”23

ROOMS OF THEIR OWN

A domestic-violence counselor would develop a safety plan with Hoa and Sarah that focuses on two objectives: safety and a safe house.24 Yet, even the first step in ending abuse brings its own set of problems. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found that many survivors of domestic violence either lose their housing after fleeing abuse or after being evicted because of domestic violence.25 Consequently, Hawai‘i should adopt housing policies—some of which will cost the state little to no money—that focus on homelessness prevention for survivors of domestic violence. I conclude by suggesting two preventative measures.

Health care is costly. However, as we have seen, homeless women suffer from worse health than their housed counterparts and use expensive medical services such as the emergency room more often. The Chicago Housing for Health Partnership (CHHP) offers Hawai‘i by example a potential cost-effective solution. A four-year study by CHHP revealed that providing permanent housing for the homeless saved the state money.26 After the program provided sixty-year-old Claude Ousley, who suffered from congestive heart failure and lived on the streets, with permanent housing, she spent “half as many days in hospitals and nursing homes and went to emergency rooms half as often as the [control group] over 18 months.”27 Housing Claude saved Chicago $12,000 a year from its health-care costs and shelter expenditures.28 Hawai‘i should at the very least conduct a pilot program like CHHP to determine if providing immediate permanent housing to survivors of domestic violence who are fleeing abuse will save the state money in health care and emergency-shelter costs.

My second suggestion would cost the state no money at all. While the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 2005 ensures housing rights to survivors of domestic violence in federally funded public-housing programs, Hawai‘i provides survivors little protection from denial of housing or eviction in private landlord–tenant housing as a result of domestic violence.29 Several other states have enacted laws within their landlord–tenant provisions that prevent private landlords from refusing to enter into rental agreements, failing to renew rental agreements, terminating rental agreements, or taking any other adverse actions against survivors of domestic violence.30 Some states also permit a survivor to terminate a fixed-lease early or to demand her locks be changed upon sufficient written notification to the private landlord.31

If Hoa and Sarah are faced with choosing between homelessness or suffering domestic violence at home, the State of Hawai‘i fails to protect the health and safety of survivors of domestic violence. State policies focused on housing survivors of domestic violence will not only promote better health but also protect a woman’s human right to live free of domestic violence.  

................................

NOTES

1. I changed the original caller’s name and identifying characteristics to maintain her anonymity. 
2. DeNoon 2008.
3. Hawaii Revised Statues Annotated § 321-471 (LexisNexis 2009).
4. Tjaden and Thoennes 2000.
5. CDC 2003. CDC defines IPV as intimate-partner violence mostly against women, including “rape, physical assault, and stalking perpetrated by a current or former date, boyfriend, husband, or cohabiting partner, with cohabiting meaning living together as a couple. Both same-sex and opposite-sex cohabitants are included in the definition.” Ibid.
6. CDC 2003.
7. Black and Breiding 2008.
8. End Abuse: Family Violence Prevention Fund 2009.
9. Campbell and Soeken 1999.
10. Violence Policy Center 2007.
11. Aguiar 2010.
12. Ibid.
13. I spoke with Sarah while working at a nonprofit agency. I changed her name and identifying characteristics to maintain her anonymity.
14. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty 2008a.
15. Ibid.
16. Perez 2008b:A1.
17. Ibid.
18. Perez 2008a:A1.
19. Withy et al. 2008.
20. Ibid.
21 . Silver and Pañares 2000.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Domestic Violence Action Center 2010.
25. Stern et al. 2007.
26. Barrett 2008:A10.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Housing Opportunity and Safety for Battered Women and Children, Title VI of the Violence Against Women Act of 2005, Public Law 109-162 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.).
30. National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty 2008b.
31 . Ibid.

REFERENCES CITED

Aguiar, Eloise
2010    5th Death Tied to Domestic Violence. Honolulu Advertiser, March 25. http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20100325/NEWS06/3250325/5th-death-tied-to-domestic-violence, accessed April 29, 2010.

Barrett, Joe
2008    Politics & Economics: Homeless Study Looks at “Housing First”: Shifting Policies to Get Chronically Ill in Homes May Save Lives, Money. Wall Street Journal, March 6:A10.

Black, M. C., and M. J. Breiding
2008    Adverse Health Conditions and Health Risk Behaviors Associated with Intimate Partner Violence, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report—United States, 2005. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5705a1.htm, accessed April 29, 2010.

Campbell, Jacquelyn C., and Karen Soeken
1999    Forced Sex and Intimate Partner Violence: Effects on Women's Risk and Women's Health. Violence Against Women 5(9):1017–1035.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
2003    Costs of Intimate Partner Violence against Women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/IPVBook-a.pdf, accessed April 29, 2010.

DeNoon, Daniel J.
2008    Intimate Violence Hurts Health: CDC: 1 in 4 Women, 1 in 9 Men Suffer Intimate-Partner Violence. WebMD Health News, February 7. http://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/news/20080207/intimate-violence-hurts-health, accessed April 29, 2010.

Domestic Violence Action Center
2010    Safety Plan. http://www.domesticviolenceactioncenter.org/services/safety-plan, accessed April 30, 2010.

End Abuse: Family Violence Prevention Fund
2009    Intimate Partner Violence and Healthy People 2010 Fact Sheet. San Francisco, CA: Family Violence Prevention Fund. http://www.endabuse.org/userfiles/file/HealthCare/healthy_people_2010.pdf, accessed April 29, 2010.

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
2008a  Some Facts on Homelessness, Housing, and Violence against Women. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (September). http://www.nlchp.org/content/pubs/DVHomelessnessFacts_September20081.pdf, accessed April 30, 2010.
2008b  State Laws and Legislation to Ensure Housing Rights for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (February).  http://www.nlchp.org/content/pubs/DV_Housing_State_Laws_Feb%20_20081.pdf, accessed April 30, 2010.

Perez, Rob
2008a  Crossing the Line: Abuse in Hawaii’s Homes. Honolulu Advertiser, December 14:A1.
2008b  Lost in Transition. Honolulu Advertiser, December 15:A1.

Silver, Gillian, and Rea Pañares
2000    The Health of Homeless Women: Information for State Maternal and Child Health Programs. Baltimore, MD: Women and Children’s Health Policy Center, John Hopkins University. http://www.jhsph.edu/bin/g/m/homeless.PDF, accessed April 30, 2010.

Stern, Naomi, Jeanine Valles, and Allison Randall, with others
2007    Lost Housing, Lost Safety: Survivors of Domestic Violence Experience Housing Denials and Evictions across the Country. National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and National Network to End Domestic Violence (February). http://www.nlchp.org/content/pubs/NNEDV-NLCHP_Joint_Stories%20_February_20072.pdf, accessed April 30, 2010.

Tjaden, Patricia, and Nancy Thoennes
2000    Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence against Women Survey. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf, accessed April 29, 2010.

Violence Policy Center
2007    When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2005 Homicide Data— Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents. Violence Policy Center (September).  http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2007.pdf, accessed April 29, 2010. 

Withy, Kelley M., Francine Amoa, January M. Andaya, Megan Inada, and Shaun P. Berry
2008    Health Care Needs of the Homeless of Oahu. Hawaii Medical Journal 67(8). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693419/pdf/nihms100977.pdf, accessed April 30, 2010.

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TATJANA JOHNSON
Tatjana is in her second year at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i. After graduating from Smith College, Tatjana was a fellow with the American India Foundation and worked in a remote elementary school in the Himalayan mountain range of India. She returned to Hawai‘i to serve as an AmeriCorps Advocate at the Legal Aid Society of Hawai‘i for two years and provided direct legal services to low-income persons.

 

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