I want to address the matter of safety in women, men, youth and LGBTQ+ shelters. In recent months I have experienced family domestic violence. Yes, it is unheard of, family domestic violence is a detrimental issue in society that is not discussed enough. This is an issue with the same fallacies occurring daily as societal secrecies within family dynamics.
The feeling of being victimized again when trying to grow through trauma leaving a family domestic violence situation is incomprehensible. My first experience here in a D.C. shelter became an environment of friction for me leading to fear for my life. An individual from the local government who used to live in the state where I lived took it upon himself to call my state and family without consent. My family and their allies let me know I’m visible.
This person caused an event for me to be jumped. I had to defend myself, however, security and other employees intervened.
The shelter I temporarily stayed at had men and women, which was confusing. You have women who think it’s okay to set up other women to be jumped or trafficked for their gain, and men who are predators.
Because of these incidents, I needed to obtain psychiatric for a few days to regulate the friction that had triggered emotional duress. Now I am at another shelter that is part of the same organization. People are pretending to be homeless. At this women’s shelter, I am receiving retaliation and abuse from employees with the threat of being transferred to a worse shelter.
I had written a grievance and nothing had transpired. Safety has been jeopardized. Now, I’ve been involuntarily committed.
The case managers are useless in the shelters because they gaslight you into believing they’ll help with housing, addiction or mental health services but they do not. Then there is the matter of “doing favors” in these places for the individuals “maintaining” the shelters. Sometimes those “favors” can help you move further into housing. Meanwhile, everyone who wants assistance is asking for protection so the individual can move away where her family cannot find her.
What the politicians say happens for the homeless, it does not, because there are so many elemental aspects to human growth and healing trauma. Politicians have no idea of the personal grounding to the human existence that the government creates with the corporations, shell companies and other organizations who continue to hike the rent. They are creating a word for humanity using government credentials under the titles and loopholes in the system.
We need our voices to be heard and not fear the mass of unstable political persons who run a country broken into puzzle pieces trying to control the masses of God’s children.
Invisible Prophet is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media.
