Why We Need to Improve Safety Through Housing in Winona

 

I am a rural intergenerational survivor of domestic violence. This means I was raised witnessing domestic violence against my mother and, as an adult, survived again. The cycle repeated.

By age 18, my mother had lived in 14 homes. Housing insecurity and poverty structured her world. As an adult, the need for safe housing for herself and her children bound her to patriarchal control and power. I have childhood memories of waiting in the dark at night for a friend to pick us up — just to stay for a night or two, to flee the violence. Now I realize how strong my mom was in front of me.

The women who took us in would talk into the night, with cigarettes and wine, providing the care and reprieve my mother needed. That kitchen table — and my mother and the women’s laughter — was safety.

These are the community-based practices we use as survivors, to protect each other. These lessons of survival and safety drive my passion for housing justice.

The Advocacy Center of Winona (ACW), formerly the Women’s Resource Center, is a survivor-driven organization in rural Minnesota, and has been serving Winona County and the surrounding areas for over 45 years. As a feminist educator and survivor, I have worked closely with advocates throughout my life. In the summer of 2020, along with ACW director Crystal Hegge, I hosted a series of workshops with advocates about the history of community-based responses to domestic and sexual violence.

The series began with taking seriously the anti-violence movement’s role in institutionalized racism and state violence. In 2020, following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery, domestic and sexual violence coalitions signed “Moment of Truth: Statement of Commitment to Black Lives.” It called for accountability and reflection on how white nonprofit leadership within the anti-violence movement had failed BIPOC survivors and movements.

The statement sought to name and address the reliance on policing and the state, and to offer an alternative vision for public safety. It includes survivor-centered recommendations to divest from policing and invest in counseling and health care; to decriminalize forms of survival, like poverty, drug use, and sex work; and to intervene against harm by providing safe housing for everyone. It asked “to increase affordable, quality housing, particularly for adult and youth survivors of violence, and in disenfranchised communities.”

The statement is a commitment made by the ACW to support the creation of an alternative response team and to deploy a Housing-First model.

 

Why Housing Is So Important

As advocates, the people of the ACW see the need for housing first. Housing is increasingly sparse in Winona County. The Winona County 2023 Comprehensive Housing Needs Analysis found that rental prices in rural parts of the county are 3 percent higher than the state of Minnesota as a whole — and in the city of Winona are 13 percent higher. Even with such high rental prices, the study found the vacancy rate was 1.7 percent; the 2023 Winona analysis suggested the rate to maintain rental equilibrium is 5 percent.

This means that victims of domestic violence are left with few options for safe housing for themselves and their children.

This past year, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety awarded the ACW $283,000 to prioritize housing as a safety practice for victims. Since May 2024, the ACW has used the grant to assist 29 survivors in finding safe and stable housing. Due to limited support from municipal budgets, the ACW holds a master lease on these homes so that survivors have immediate access to discreet, safe housing.

There are other barriers to finding housing for survivors in Winona County. Landlords sometimes view the experiences of survivors as troublesome and do not want them to stay in their homes. Survivors sometimes have poor credit and past evictions because abusers may have damaged properties, leaving the responsibility on the survivor to pay for. Many survivors are victims of economic abuse, leaving them with multiple outstanding bills that the ACW cannot pay.

Safe, secure, affordable housing for larger families is difficult to find. Survivors with pets — important companions for recovery — have a difficult time finding housing or paying pet fees for rentals.

To address challenges within Winona County, ACW executive director Crystal Hegge has led community efforts to address homelessness, such as developing supportive housing and a local housing trust that offers flexible funds for individuals to maintain or find new housing. Prioritizing housing as public safety is a transformative shift in practice.

A Shift in Perspective

Black feminists Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie have argued that “we need to break the equation of policing and public safety” to reclaim public safety. In other words, believing police are the producers of public safety is limited thinking, held by people with community privilege.

According to an extensive 2023 longitudinal study by the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the “Domestic Violence Housing First model is more effective than services-as-usual in helping survivors [and their children] achieve housing stability, safety, and improved mental health over two years.”

When I tell my mom about the housing-first work that advocates are leading in Winona, she says, “That would have saved my life many times.”

The Advocacy Center of Winona’s implementation of the Housing First model provides critical insights for Winona County on housing justice in rural communities. Winona County and the city are in discussions to invest in a multimillion-dollar police station — a reversal of the racial justice demands of 2020. Survivor-led visions for reclaiming public safety include housing first. It is time we shift our priorities.

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Mary Jo Klinker is professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Winona State University.

 

We will be in Winona to talk about the challenges and approaches to developing supportive housing in the community. If you want to share your own experience with supportive housing, please contact community@womenspress.com with “Housing” in subject line.