Gina* never envisioned a life on the run for herself and her three children. When she first met her batterer she was 17 years old and thought she had finally found true love and an escape from the abuse from her own father. She met Charlie* when she was in high school and was full of dreams and hopes for her future with him. Charlie and Gina married two weeks after her 18th birthday and she was whisked away into a life of financial bondage and brutal beatings.

The first time Charlie hit Gina she was 4 months pregnant and it was during their 2nd year of marriage. She had to work late that night and was unable to put dinner on the table at precisely 6 pm. She had never known Charlie to get angry to the point of bruising her face and cracking one of her ribs and decided that it was her fault for putting dinner on the table too late that evening.

F ive years and two more children later, Gina felt trapped. She was in and out of the hospital with various problems resulting from Charlie’s impatience and quick temper and was unable to support herself as Charlie had forbidden her to work or to leave the house other than to take their children to school. Alone and cut off from family and friends, Gina was desperate to take her kids away from the violence and took them to a nearby homeless shelter while her husband thought she was taking them to school. After staying two weeks in the shelter, Gina came across Safe Places, a transitional housing program that offered to take her family to safe and hidden housing and help her get back on her feet.

While she was a participant in Safe Places, Gina was linked to necessary resources such as employment, access to support groups for battered women, and she was linked to legal assistance which eventually helped her to finalize her divorce. After the two year program Gina had cleaned up her credit and attained a housing choice voucher so that she and her children would never again worry about where they would sleep at night.

*While Gina herself is not an actual client, Gina represents the hundreds of individuals that Safe Places has assisted with escaping their abusers and beginning their lives all over again.