The Shriver Brief : Poverty Law Commentary & Insights : Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law : Affordable Housing, Healthcare Reform

Students who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence face unique challenges as they try to stay in school, stay safe while in school, and successfully complete their education. Failing to complete school can have life-long consequences, with high school dropouts reporting lower employment levels, lower lifetime earnings, and overall poorer health. Teen pregnancy and parenting and domestic and sexual violence are factors that contribute to the dropout and push-out crisis, but have thus far received insufficient attention from policymakers in Illinois.

Because of this, the Women’s Law and Policy Project at the Shriver Center got together a coalition of education, youth, and violence prevention advocates and students and their parents from across Illinois in 2003 to address these issues. The coalition drafted a bill to support elementary and secondary students who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence, which was introduced by Rep. Karen Yarbrough in 2005 and again in 2007. In 2007, the legislation was enacted into law as Public Act 95-0558. The law created the Ensuring Success in School Task Force, charged with examining and making recommendations regarding barriers to school attendance, successful school performance and graduation faced by students who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence.

This summer, the Ensuring Success in School Task Force released its Final Report to the Illinois General Assembly. The report is the product of extensive research, consultation with experts, and public hearings held across the state, and it encompasses all of the task force’s findings and recommendations for how to support elementary and secondary students who are parents, expectant parents, or survivors of domestic or sexual violence.

Moving forward, the Shriver Center is convening a meeting of stakeholders to develop a strategic action plan based on the findings and recommendations of the report. If you are interested in participating in the first meeting, which has been set for Tuesday, September 7, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., or in future meetings, please contact Wendy Pollack at 312-368-3303. For those outside of Illinois who are interested in pursuing these issues in your area, also please contact Wendy.

For more background information on the Ensuring Success in School Initiative, contact Wendy, or see The Ensuring Success in School Act: Promoting School Success and Safety for Young People Who Are Parents, Expectant Parents, or Victims of Domestic or Sexual Violence. The full text of the legislation as originally introduced in 2005 is available at ilga.gov.

Shana Heller-Ogden coauthored this article.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Congress and several states take actions to stop evictions of victims of violence

For women and children in this country, domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness. Survivors of domestic violence (of which 90 to 95% are women), dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking living in rental housing are particularly vulnerable to homelessness because they are often threatened with eviction after an incident of violence. These evictions are frequently born out of property owners’ stereotypes about survivors of violence as individuals accountable for the acts of their abusers. Indeed, up until a few years ago, when victims of violence who lived in federally assisted low-income housing called the police to report intruders, being shot, or otherwise terrorized by their abusers, they would immediately receive an eviction notice.

In 2005, Congress adopted federal protections against evictions and denial of housing for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. The 2005 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act prohibits evictions and admission denials of victims of violence who live certain types of federally supported low-income housing. The 2011 VAWA reauthorization should improve upon VAWA 2005 and expand it to cover other types of federal supported low-income housing. Any reauthorization must also extend those protections to survivors of sexual assault. 

On April 27, the Illinois Legislature passed H.B. 5523 and joined several other states, including Indiana, Colorado, Arkansas, Delaware, Texas and Virginia in protecting victims of violence from evictions based upon incidents of violence and/or their status as a victim of violence. Maryland has recently passed a similar bill. The governors of those states should sign the bills immediately.

However, property owners are not the only ones threatening survivors’ housing. A growing number of municipalities have adopted aggressive property nuisance codes or “crime-free” rental housing ordinances that obligate owners, under threat of losing their license to operate rental property, to evict all tenants when there is a crime or multiple police calls for assistance. To limit a survivor’s access to police assistance under threat of homelessness or to blame them for the crime committed against them likely violates their rights under the U.S. Constitution and Federal Fair Housing Act. While we support the idea of improving the quality and safety of rental housing, municipal actions cannot interfere with a survivor’s safety or hold them accountable for a perpetrator’s actions. Municipalities should amend these ordinances to eliminate these harmful and likely illegal provisions.   

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

New research and new legislation on abstinence-only sex education has brought the ongoing debate between abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education to a new pitch.

A little context: abstinence-only sex education received small amounts of funding in the 1980s, but got its real start during the Clinton administration with the 1996 welfare reform law. As part of that law, Title V of the Social Security Act was amended. This amendment established funding for abstinence-only programs and outlined the eight requirements for a program to receive funding, including the promotion of abstinence until marriage, and teaching that abstinence is the only way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and that sex before marriage would likely be psychologically and physically harmful (the law is codified at 42 U.S.C. § 710). Every state, with the exception of California, applied for funds, and loosely interpreted the eight requirements, which largely went unenforced.

Under President George W. Bush there was a significant increase in federal funding for abstinence-only programs, including Title V and the Community-Based Abstinence Education program. The federal funding combined with state matching funds catapulted spending on abstinence-only programs to over $200 million per year by 2005 (up from $9 million in 1997). The Bush administration also began more stringently enforcing the requirements for funding, and states, wary of the restrictions on teaching about birth control and safe sex, slowly began to drop their federal funding requests.

Meanwhile, study after study showed abstinence-only sex education to be not only ineffective, but sometimes even harmful to adolescents. In 1997, teen pregnancy rates in the US went up for the first time in 15 years, along with teen STD rates. The Obama administration finally ended funding for abstinence-only sex education, allowing Title V to expire, and instead redirected funds toward comprehensive, evidence-based programs.

Now, in 2010, the Journal of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine has released a study claiming to have at last found an abstinence-only program that works. The study, “Efficacy of a Theory-Based Abstinence-Only Intervention Over 24 Months,” raised new hopes for proponents of abstinence-only education, but the kind of abstinence-only program used in this study is vastly different from the Bush-era programs – so much that it would not have qualified for federal funding. The program in this study was neither moralistic nor disparaging toward sex or contraception, and only advocated abstinence until “a time later in life,” not until marriage. 

These changes are certainly steps in the right direction, but withholding critical information from teens on safe sex still raises serious questions, especially given the fact that 25 percent of the 12 year-olds who participated in this study were self-reportedly already having sex. For more information about this study and its findings, see our latest WomanView. 

Much to the dismay of teen pregnancy prevention advocates, Bush-era abstinence-only programs have not gone away – far from it, actually. Renewed funding for Title V, to the tune of $50 million a year over the next five years (plus state matching funds, up to an additional $38 million per year), was part of the health care reform bill, signed into law last week. 

Preventing teen pregnancy is, of course, important. The Shriver Center supports medically accurate, comprehensive sex education that is appropriate to students’ age, developmental level, and cultural background, not more failed abstinence-only programs. Through our Ensuring Success in School Initiative, we also support teens who are already parents or expectant parents so that they can stay in school, graduate, get good jobs, and raise healthy families.

For more information on sex education policy or on our efforts to support teens who are parents or expectant parents, please contact the Women’s Law and Policy Project.

WomanView is a publication of the Women’s Law and Policy Project at the Shriver Center, focusing on legal and policy issues affecting low-income women and girls. You can subscribe to WomanView here. 

Shana Heller-Ogden coauthored this blog post.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

The effects of domestic and sexual violence are not checked at the door when a survivor of violence enters her place of employment. Oftentimes individuals who experience domestic or sexual violence report missing work due to the violence in their lives, enduring harassment by the abuser at work, suffering health problems that affect job performance, or losing employment due to the violence. A study by the U.S. Department of Justice found that, during a 12-month period, more than half of stalking victims lost five or more days of work, and about 130,000 stalking victims reported that they were fired or asked to leave their jobs because of the stalking. Yet, according to a survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 70 percent of U.S. workplaces have no formal program or policy that tackles workplace violence.

It’s time for the federal government to act, following Illinois’ example, where late last month the Illinois General Assembly passed an important piece of legislation that is a notable victory for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, their families, and advocates. The Illinois Senate voted unanimously to concur with House Amendments No. 1 and No. 2 on Senate Bill 1770, an amendment to the Victims’ Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA). Originally enacted in 2003 with then–State Senator Barack Obama as principal sponsor, VESSA provides unpaid, job-guaranteed leave and nondiscrimination protections for eligible employees who are survivors of domestic or sexual violence or who have a family or household member who is a survivor of domestic or sexual violence.

Since its enactment in 2003, VESSA has provided significant benefits and workplace protections for Illinois employees. VESSA allows a covered employee to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off from work to deal with the violence in her lives without losing her job during a 12-month period. VESSA also prohibits an employer from discriminating, harassing, or retaliating against an employee who is exercising her rights under this law.

Once signed into law, the amendment will expand VESSA to cover more employees in the private sector by decreasing the private employer threshold number of employees from 50 or more to 15 or more. The amendment adds language providing that an employee who works for an employer with at least 15 but not more than 49 employees may take up to 8 work weeks (rather than 12) of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave to deal with domestic or sexual violence during a 12-month period.

VESSA has proven to be a lifeline for employees coping with domestic or sexual violence. While VESSA allows for several weeks of leave, most employees who take leave take significantly less. And, of the 107 complaints that have been filed since enactment, most VESSA claims notably allege discrimination by the employer.

With the recession being a perpetual reminder of the crucial nature of job preservation and economic stability, the passage of S.B. 1770 is a surefire victory that will help more survivors of domestic and sexual violence maintain their employment and economic stability as they strive to remain safe and ultimately escape a violent situation. Action on the federal level is more pressing than ever.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks