Editor’s note: The State News offers this report from within the walls of MSU Safe Place to show life experiences of those inside working and living with domestic abuse. The name of one survivor and the location of the domestic violence shelter are not revealed to protect the safety of those involved with the haven.
After frantically packing up her two young sons and as many of her possessions as she could carry, the 20-something began to run.
The now 30-something East Lansing resident spent the past 10 years escaping the abusive clutches of her husband, moving from home to home while pursuing her education, transferring from university to university.
“I kept running, and he kept chasing,” she said. “I tried to leave him for so many years.”
She had dated him for a year before they married. She then became pregnant with their first of two sons.
“Maybe he felt like I was trapped and he had me in his clutches after our first son was born,” she said. “He became highly abusive. He would leave the house for days, and if I asked where he was, he would hit me. He gave me broken bones, just horrible things.
“The first time the abuse occurred, I realized I had to leave him - but realizing you have to leave and getting away are two different things.
“I knew I didn’t belong there, but I had a child and it was more difficult to get away.”
After years of abuse, she took her sons away from their comfortable suburban house and the abuse that had plagued them. She went to her first shelter. But her illusion of safety was shattered when his stalking led him to her.
“After the first couple of years, I had finally replaced the stuff when he came back,” she said. “When I left (that time), I was in a really big hurry and I didn’t want him to catch me loading a truck.”
After grabbing only a few bags of clothing and abandoning all her other possessions, she left her second home with her two boys.
“It comes to the point where you have to decide which is more important, your stuff or your life,” she said.
After several attempts to escape her husband, she almost had given up. Finally, she ended up in Oakland University’s student housing. But again, he found her.
Then she heard about a domestic violence shelter at MSU - MSU Safe Place. She applied to MSU, where she was accepted and pursued bachelor’s degrees in art and English.
She also transferred into Safe Place, even though she didn’t expect her life to improve. She spent her next six weeks in the university haven.
“It was long enough to make me feel that I wasn’t being followed, long enough to get away from that fear factor.
“I feel to this day that if Safe Place was not here for me to come to, I don’t think I’d be alive today.”
The start of something special
Safe Place became a refuge for survivors of domestic violence - men and women - in 1994, after MSU first lady Joanne McPherson joined a group of medical professionals and police officers to address the issue of domestic violence in the area.
The university shelter is the only one of its kind in the nation. MSU financially supports Safe Place by providing $50,000 in funding each year.
“I’m proud that MSU has a domestic violence shelter,” said Holly Rosen, MSU Safe Place director. “But I’m saddened to realize that other universities are that concerned with liability and safety issues.”
McPherson said other universities often inquire about Safe Place but have never formed a campus shelter of their own. She said the hesitation from these colleges could be a result of several factors.
“It may look like they had a bigger problem than everybody else,” she said. “But that isn’t how it turned out for us. In fact, we’ve even had students come to MSU because there is a shelter.”
McPherson recognized domestic violence as a problem within the MSU community after considering the available resources.
“There is a shelter in Lansing, but it is not convenient for the students and their schedules,” she said. “We looked at this entire issue and decided to do it.”
The shelter now houses 100 to 120 survivor a year, many of whom are affiliated with the university. It has 12 beds for the typical eight to 10 people staying there. Residents can stay at the shelter for 30 days. Some circumstances, however, warrant longer stays. The average time a resident lives at Safe Place is 48 days.
Domestic violence by the numbers
East Lansing police Lt. Lance Langdon said domestic violence cases in the East Lansing area have remained fairly stable in the past three years.
In 2001, the city’s blue handled 197 cases of domestic violence. That number is a drop from the 225 cases in 2000, but an increase from the 127 cases in 1999.
“This violence can be between two roommates, as well,” Langdon said. “These are not just reports of spouse abuse.”
East Lansing police Capt. Juli Liebler said domestic violence shelters are important for providing an avenue of escape.
“A lot of times victims of domestic violence stay in that environment because they don’t have the money or resources to leave,” Liebler said.
Rosen said although it does offer safety, Safe Place also provides community support.
“We could set up individual housing for everybody so that they’re living on their own, and that would address the safety issue,” Rosen said. “But one thing that wouldn’t accomplish is allowing people to provide support for each other and for those who are experiencing common problems.
“It can feel pretty intimidating and lonely, but if you’re housed with other people, that can provide a good base for support. That’s something that’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it.”
Informal group sessions with people who have been abused help those staying at the shelter.
“When I first came, I thought I was doing something wrong,” the 30-something East Lansing resident said. “I thought I was the problem, but when you go to the group sessions and you hear other women telling the same story, you realize it wasn’t your fault.”
Staci Joseph, community relations coordinator at the Lansing shelter Council Against Domestic Assault, or CADA, believes Safe Place’s presence is a benefit to the entire community.
“Whenever there’s a sister shelter working in cooperation with another shelter to provide resources to victims of domestic violence, it’s a very positive thing,” Joseph said. “I think that having Safe Place for those students and faculty who are victims of domestic violence is helpful to the MSU community.”
The Lansing shelter works with Safe Place to assign survivors of domestic violence to the best shelter for their needs. In return, Safe Place aids the council when CADA experiences an overflow of guests.
“CADA actually mans the 24-hour crisis line, so we take all the domestic violence calls,” Joseph said. “If it’s an MSU student, we refer them to MSU Safe Place.”
It can happen too, at ‘U’
According to Safe Place, 25 to 30 percent of the college students have been involved in domestic violence.
“It’s a pretty common statistic, whether they poll 50 people or 500 people,” Rosen said.
Violence is a top three killer for those between 18 and 24, said Dennis Martell, health educator for Olin Health Center.
“You can see where violence is a really important topic to deal with at this age group,” Martell said. “As a culture, we are way too accepting of violence.”
But Rosen said domestic abuse usually is a hidden battle.
“Domestic violence is one of those things that is very private,” she said. “You can be very close to somebody and not even have a clue that this is what they’re going through.”
The 30-something East Lansing resident said she often tried to hide her abuse.
“I was here for five years and I never talked to any of my classmates about it,” she said. “I never told anybody this story, and I never told anybody that I came to Safe Place. It could be the person sitting next to you, but you would never know it unless they came in all black and blue.”
A place to hang a hat
In the white-walled common room of the shelter, two brown vintage couches serve as the main area where volunteers meet with newly-arrived survivors to discuss their situations.
The process can last from a half hour to an hour and a half, depending on the survivor‘s needs. They then discuss the rules that have to be followed while staying there.
“We don’t have a lot of rules like a lot of shelters,” Rosen said. “Many shelters have a curfew and require you to do a chore or two a day, but we don’t have any of that.”
The main rule the guests follow is to keep the shelter’s location and other guests confidential.
“We respect confidentiality big time,” Rosen said. “We don’t care who they are - we’re not going to break somebody’s trust.”
McPherson said that secrecy is the reason why the MSU shelter has succeeded.
“All these years Safe Place has always been in the same location because the students who use it don’t talk about where the location is,” McPherson said. “Quite frankly, I find that amazing with the number of students on campus.”
MSU Safe Place intern Jennifer Edsall, a clinical social work graduate student, said although confidentiality is important, respect also is necessary.
“You obviously have to respect them because you share the same space, but you have to respect them verbally as well,” she said. “This is a safe place.”
The shelter requires residents to attend a support group once a week, and if support group is missed, the resident attends an individual counseling session.
“They talk a lot about what’s been happening in their lives in the past, what’s happening in the present, and what they want for the future,” Edsall said. “They talk about characteristics of domestic violence and what their goals are.”
Edsall said the shelter’s lenient rules help the survivors feel more freedom.
Behind the brown couches, a closet stuffed full of canned foods hints to the unconventional cooking methods at the shelter.
“We give everybody food vouchers so they can buy their own food,” Rosen said. “That way if they have particular dietary needs or preferences they can make whatever they want.”
Entering an adjoining room that houses guest suites, soft music creates a sense of home. In the first section, a large white-walled living room, two plush couches face a television and VCR. A few pieces of artwork accent bare walls and various children’s toys are kept on a wooden table.
Behind the couch is a kitchen area with a refrigerator, stove, microwave, coffee maker and toaster. Next to the kitchen is an old table surrounded by four chairs.
“Each shelter suite is made up of one to three families,” Rosen said. “They decide if they want to eat on their own or cook together.”
Attached to this room lies a tiny bedroom crammed with three of the shelter’s beds, a closet and a dresser. Soft comforters lay on the bed, and perfume and hairbrushes rest on the shelf. A half-dozen stuffed animals recline on a brightly colored bed near the door.
How it works
Sitting in a staff office, shelter volunteer and advocacy coordinator Alyssa Baumann said Safe Place has taught her a lot about domestic violence.
“I’ve gotten more awareness of the dynamics of domestic violence,” the 2001 MSU graduate said. “I always knew it was hard to leave a domestic violence situation, but until I actually started working in this field, I didn’t realize how hard it is and how many barriers there are.”
Safe Place workers usually are on the grounds for 10 hours a day from Mondays through Fridays. This year, they have four full-time staff members, two interns and roughly 30 volunteers. Each volunteer trains for 40 hours at a mandatory session, where he or she is trained in crisis intervention, child care and community education.
Rosen said crisis intervention volunteers work personally with women and children. They are involved with formulating goal plans, performing shelter guidance sessions and meeting with residents to discuss their needs.
In some situations, MSU’s ombudsman also may play a part in helping the survivor, especially in cases in which a student could miss schoolwork or an exam because of an assault.
“In situations like that I do help the student by contacting the faculty member to make other arrangements,” MSU Ombudsman Stan Soffin said. “(Rosen) and I have the kind of arrangement where I trust her and wouldn’t need to know the details of the assault.”
Helping hands
Entering a crowded Safe Place storage room, advocacy coordinator Erica Schmittdiel smiled as she sat down between a box of donated children’s clothing and a pile of baby strollers.
The massive room seems to hold any item imaginable, including a box of new deodorant and shampoo samples, racks full of men’s and women’s clothing, stacks of used microwaves and televisions, and a pile of new children’s toys and books.
“People are really generous with donations, to the point where we get too many,” Schmittdiel said. “There are some things that we do always need, though.”
Schmittdiel said the shelter always needs large diapers, new underwear and socks, worn children’s clothing and larger women’s clothing. They also are in need of African-American hair products, cleaning and office supplies and new children’s toys.
McPherson also was impressed by the generosity she has witnessed.
“We even had a donor from the university give us a vehicle,” she said. “Now we can take people around for meetings or appointments.”
She said the overall project has gone further than she had originally planned.
“We now have scholarships for students who want to continue their education but have been disrupted by domestic violence,” McPherson said.
Rosen said donations also help waive many of the shelter’s general costs.
“If you’re looking at food, cleaning supplies, laundry supplies and the amount needed for rent and that kind of thing, it would cost well over $50 a night per person,” Rosen said. “But a lot of that is donated. We get a lot of food and supplies donated, and some of the rental costs are waived.”
In addition to money from the university, Safe Place receives about $20,000 from the Capital Area United Way each year. It also was given a federal grant in 1999 from the U.S. Department of Justice, Rosen said.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” she said. “When we first started in 1994, the campus community was very generous, and they’ve continued to be very supportive of our program.”
Surviving
Now, the 30-something lives in a home of her own, raising two growing boys. Her life seems to be coming together.
After receiving bachelor’s degrees from MSU in English and art, she is pursuing her graduate work in psychology at MSU.
“(Safe Place) was a great place for me to go,” she said. “I wanted to stay in school, and I wouldn’t have been able to if it weren’t for (Rosen) and this place.”
She said although she feels safer now, her personal recovery took a long time. Thinking about the abuse still brings tears to her eyes. Her sons, ages 10 and 13, still have nightmares.
“By the time I finally realized that I was in a bad situation, my self-esteem was so low and I was always fearful,” she said. “I was afraid, and I didn’t want to meet anybody else.
“I never went out - I went to class and came home and that was it. I didn’t really involve myself because I was afraid of other people.”
Through a combination of therapy, Safe Place sessions and psychology classes at MSU, she has become a lot stronger and more confident.
“I know that I am unusual in that I left an abusive situation and I never went back,” she said. “I think that the majority of cases do go back, and they do end up in that situation again. It’s difficult if you’ve been through it yourself.
“I took a lot of the things I learned, and I came to a much better understanding of myself. It helped me today to make the right decisions and to think carefully about the situations and people I meet.”
She has come to learn signs of people who are abusive.
“If anything even looks like trouble in the beginning, I’ll be able to recognize it before waiting until it’s too late,” she said.
She and her two sons are attempting to construct a new life in their home in the city.
“My oldest son really likes it up here because we’ve been in the same place for six years and he’s been going to the same school system,” she said. “He is finally comfortable, but he still doesn’t sleep at night.
“It still continues to affect them today. It was a horrible experience for all of us. If I had known what a horrible person he would turn into, I would have never married him.
“I’m a really good success story. I got out, I stayed out, and I’m alive and doing well.”
Elissa Englund can be reached at englunde@msu.edu.
