0:00:00.2 Louie Marven: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, an understanding, responding to, and preventing sexual abuse and assault. I'm Louie Marven, and I'm a project coordinator at the NSVRC. Today's episode is part of a series on housing for prevention that we co-created with the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Our organizations collaborate on an initiative that supports advocates in meeting the housing needs of survivors. And in reflecting on that work together, we became eager to talk about the ways that housing is also a tool for preventing violence. Today you're going to hear Rebekah Moses with GBV Consulting interview clinician activist, queer survivor, Mel Pasignajen.

[music]

0:01:02.4 Rebekah Moses: Hello everyone, and welcome to a podcast in NSVRC series on housing and sexual violence prevention. My name is Rebekah Moses, pronouns she and eir. I'm with GBV Consulting and I have the distinct honor and pleasure to be joined by Mel, whose pronouns are she/they. Mel is a brown, Latinx, Filipinx queer activist, survivor and clinician who has aspired to be in the trenches of serving in uplifting communities in need since they were a young person in school. Being first generation US born, Mel's passion for social justice equity and recreating systems that are affirming and inclusive of intersecting identities stems from their own family's narrative of navigating various systems as immigrants and as a person reclaiming space and promoting healing. They're currently pursuing a PhD in gender and sexual fluidity while working as a clinical director of a co-occurring mental health and substance use community clinic. Welcome, Mel.

0:02:13.5 Mel Pasignajen: Thank you so much. It's truly an honor and a privilege to be here.

0:02:18.3 RM: So let's chat about housing and sexual violence prevention. Mel, for you, what is the connection between violence prevention and housing? 

0:02:31.5 MP: Such a valuable question. The question, right? So the very presence of housing provides both an intrinsic and external level of safety, stability, and subsequently a potential for an individual or persons to set out on a positive trajectory. Right? If we were to consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs for a moment, we know that the primary tier requires that shelter be in place in order to experience just physiological fullness first, the domino effect thereafter is that we have the potential to feel satisfaction and security if the following needs on that hierarchy are met. So when it comes to the issue of violence prevention, violence prevention are all the intentional steps and actions that can be taken proactively to contribute to our intrinsic and external needs being met. Just to spotlight for a moment the honor I had of being part of a team that founded and created the practice and execution of a very small idea, which happened to be quite large, of creating a safe house and transitional living program for female identified survivors of domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

0:04:19.4 MP: They also happen to be living with HIV or Aids. And so you see all these complexities, all these intersecting identities, these various factors that directly and profoundly impact the trajectory of their lives. And so when I think about my experience as a director of that program, and truly being in the trenches with my survivors, just kind of fumbling through their everyday lives, being empowered already, and recognizing their power all over again, I think about how all the different factors that were a part of them getting there, arriving there, how those things need to be looked at very carefully, how they need to be considered with curiosity.

0:05:21.5 MP: And so violence prevention promotes exactly that. It recognizes that should housing security and stability be threatened, the very option to feel different types of safety, we know there's not just one, to feel secure in order to make deliberate and purposeful decisions, to not feel the sting of threat, that our whole world as we know it can be taken away. And that our global beliefs, the way we perceive the world, others, our connection to folks, our sense of safety, these things can all drastically change in any one given moment. Violence prevention recognizes that. Violence itself threatens our intrinsic experience of security and safety, and can also have a profound impact on the lenses through which we see the world and navigate it. Violence prevention and housing then, it just goes hand in hand.

0:06:32.5 RM: Totally agree. Can you share more about what wisdom exists inside your community to keep people safe and housed? 

0:06:44.4 MP: I think at a very basic level, safe housing is the foundation to positive medical, behavioral, financial, overall social determinants of health, consider the effect of systems on our lives, on our trajectories. Social determinants of health are the conditions in the environments where we all are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age. That affect the wide range of health, our overall functioning, our quality of life, the risks we take, the outcomes we experience. So when considering social determinants of health, we have to recognize safe housing is a part of that. Transportation, the composition of our neighborhoods, the experience of racism, discrimination, violence, education, access to job opportunities, income, access to nutritious foods, physical activity opportunities. All of these things have a direct effect on the outcomes in our everyday lives. Through my work in the HIV, domestic violence, sexual assault field, we know that one study found that young African-American women from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods who reported a lack of food at home, homelessness, and low perceived education and employment prospects had anywhere from 2.2-4.7 times higher odds of contracting a chronic illness like HIV than those without these risk factors.

0:08:43.6 MP: So right there in that snapshot alone, we see how any given combination of factors can affect the likelihood of something occurring in our lives. Violence increases the statistic exponentially for homeless and unstably housed people living with HIV, we found that the receipt of stable housing reduced higher risk behaviors, it improved access to care, it increased adherence to medication regimens among people who received intervention compared with those who did not. So that's just a snapshot through the lens that I've had the privilege of looking through and working with these populations who are extremely marginalized and how housing and violence can directly impact those folks.

0:09:43.5 RM: Thank you so much, Mel. As you're sharing your experience and you're talking about these factors, it brings up for me the fact that there's this dominant story about housing, right? One that says housing is earned and blames individuals for experiencing homelessness. And I think we're all trying to have bigger imaginations and think expansively about housing and sexual violence, in our story. And I think you and I met in a work group looking at creating access for survivors of sexual violence to transitional housing. And we talked about in our work group, where you helped co-write a document we put together, and one of the things that we said in the document was, housing is a basic human right. Right? And so, in our story, housing is a basic human right. What is the story about housing that you tell through your work? 

0:10:42.5 MP: This question has so much bandwidth...

[laughter]

0:10:48.9 MP: To just really consider. And I'm excited to just kind of wrestle with it, with you here, so...

[laughter]

0:11:00.5 RM: And I have to say, we've been told by the folks who are recording this that we should pause and let one another speak. And Mel and I were saying that might be difficult. [laughter] So, this is our first foray into, how do we talk about this? So what is the story about housing that we tell through our work? What is this, I mean, like, 'cause I feel like there's a story we want to tell. There's the story we're forced to tell by limitations around funding and eligibility for things. There's the story that survivors want us to tell, that survivors tell us. Does any of that kind of spark anything for you? 

0:11:37.3 MP: Their everyday life, is not simply allocated to every human being equitably. And so I have to say that again, access to, and the privilege of secure and affordable housing is not simply allocated to every human being equitably. Let's consider this very fact. We see red tape and zoning practices in neighborhoods that were once considered undesirable or promoted as unsafe. So folks would not consider creating domicile there to now all of a sudden making these neighborhoods entirely inaccessible due to exorbitant costs of rent, to making it nothing but inaccessible, to essentially sever the room for folks to hope and reach and plan. This begs attention to the reality that not all persons have access to the same resources, and consequently, all of the ways they navigate everyday life and their access to knowledge that could catapult them into positive health outcomes, into a sense of autonomy and self-efficacy is stinted. Housing is an undeniable human right. And, it is absolute that we are cognizant of how oppressions are perpetuated and promoted systemically, that a lack of safe and stable housing is essentially an act of violence itself.

0:13:26.2 RM: Exactly. I mean, it reminds me of kind of like, I remember as an advocate, my boss, and then the first thing she handed me was, one of the first things she handed me was Paulo Freire's book on, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. And one of the lines that I took from that was like, any act that denies a human being the right to ask questions about their life, to answer those questions, this is not the exact quote, right? The quote is much shorter, but the meaning of the quote for me was like, anything that says a person can't kind of imagine the world and recreate the world to meet their needs in community is an act of violence. And I hear you saying that through the kind of dominant narrative about what housing should be and who should have access to it. But I think what the narrative should actually be, which is it's a basic human right. And allowing people to define what that looks like for themselves and community, is I think one of the first steps in healing from violence.

0:14:33.5 MP: 100%. 100%. And, it even begs us to think about healing, in a multifaceted way. Working with survivors, we know that healing is very much self-led. Right? It stems from a place of ebbs and flows and readiness. It is rooted in just the practice of being gentle and giving room, reminding someone that they have the right to make decisions. And so to your point about the ability to imagine, to your point about housing, however that's conceptualized and it's relationship to healing, there's a direct relationship there.

0:15:36.4 RM: Well, and I appreciate you bringing up that point, because I think so often when, I've seen this happen where people make the case that if we can get, if people have housing, we can prevent maybe further violence in their life, right? Or further bad things happening in their life. And then when people have housing and violence occurs again or they're not healing in the ways that the dominant narrative says people should heal, which is like, you get housing, you're safe, nothing bad ever happens again, I think funders sometimes and policy makers wanna back away from supporting healing as defined by survivors themselves once they get housing. And that can look, and you were just talking about that, that can look totally different for different survivors. So I just appreciate you mentioning that. [laughter]

0:16:28.3 MP: Yeah. It's, well, when policymakers and folks in power are asked to take a closer look at this, suggesting healing would also suggest that a system is broken. And we know how difficult it can be. When a mirror is held up to us at any given time, we as humans, it can be challenging to really look at what we're confronted with.

0:17:02.5 RM: What issues and movements do you see as being interconnected to housing and violence prevention work? 

0:17:09.2 MP: So many, so many, this is not at all exhaustive, but I think the movement that promotes domestic violence and sexual assault equals homelessness. That idea draws a bridge to the very fact that these things threaten stability and safety. Right? The Me Too Movement, Tarana Burke began her work just really spotlighting sexual assault, sexual violence, from a policy standpoint, the Violence Against Women Act, options like victims of crime compensation, the Fair and Equal Housing Act, and its protections of LGBTQ identified persons. We know that queer identified folks, or LGBTQ folks are impacted by violence every single day, whether on a small scale like a microaggression or policies and systems that flat out say you don't belong. All of these and more are interconnected to housing and violence prevention work.

0:18:34.0 RM: So, there's another piece of this that I'd like to discuss with you, Mel, which is kind of in the mainstream anti-violence field, shelter has been seen as a key component of kind of core services and involves connecting with the survivor around their needs after the violence has happened. However, we know that accessible, affordable, and safe housing is an important part of building communities free from violence. Despite what we know about risks and protective factors and social determinants of health, the mainstream field has prioritized other services. In your opinion, what will it take to build the political will to incorporate housing work as prevention work? 

0:19:21.0 MP: This is such a weighted question, and I think it's completely possible to tackle. Even if things can appear to us like the tallest mountain to climb, [laughter] it is possible. And so my response to this is just intentional and deliberate leaning into discomfort and having challenging and necessary conversations about how systems perpetuate violence and oppression. You and I are virtually holding space and sharing space for one another right now. And I think that if folks come from a place of curiosity, much like you and I are doing in this moment, things are very possible. To consider social determinants of health in every policy, in various environments like corporate America, the education system, the legal system, every system that affects human life, both directly and indirectly, it's an absolute must.

0:20:56.3 MP: A whole cultural shift, right? Easier said than done, but it does begin with that intentional leaning in, it's required and it must be demanded through uplifting the voices of survivors of violence, really understanding their stories, their intersecting identities that comprise and write their narratives. We have to come from a place of humility. A humble witnessing of just the human condition through dialogue, connection, and consideration with curiosity is what it will take. These things we do in our everyday lives, they're accessible. The things that I'm mentioning, and through this I think we can accept and normalize that education is prevention as well. We can normalize that these types of conversations can be a part of everyday connection. It can be a part of educating our young people, those generations to come behind us about their responsibility to consider the plight, the challenges of others, what other folks are going through. And of course, this is the clinician in me and the survivor in me talking, empathy, humility, creating and carving out room for folks to have very valuable conversations and to hear from those that violence touches has to be a part of that leaning in.

0:23:08.5 RM: And a follow-up on this issue, do you feel like, 'cause the question I posed was kind of like, how do we support people around their housing and healing, their housing needs and healing needs before violence happens, that assumes that violence isn't always kind of happening, that we're not born into kind of a violent world. But a corollary to that question is this issue of that it can oftentimes be really hard to get support around your housing unless you are actually literally homeless on the street, right? So like, so, could you talk a little bit about that, like your experience around that? Like, what does that mean for people, that like, someone is not literally like... Living on the streets are a place not meant for human habitation. Maybe they're doubled up. And... Or they're living in a place where it's very triggering for them. Maybe they're not experiencing violence in that place, but something about the place is triggering of past violence. Just talk a little bit about what you think about that. [chuckle] What you think needs to be changed around that.

0:24:19.1 MP: Absolutely. The cultural shift that I'm promoting, it can begin with the acceptance that trauma is a part of everyday life. And there has to be a normalization of that. And when folks think about trauma, they think about these really devastating, you know, using ableist language, debilitating occurrence in someone's life, thinking about trauma. Let's talk about 9/11 and how that directly impacted housing. That's a very observable, traumatic experience. But we also have to consider that trauma can be the passing of a loved one. What if that loved one is your primary provider and caregiver? Who holds down the house, who directly contributes to food being present in the home, the bills being paid so that you can continue domicile there, right? Trauma is a part of everyday life. And I think the more that we recognize this as an everyday human being rather than just talking about trauma in clinical spaces, in population health spaces, the more we normalize these things, the more our eyes can really open to witness the fact that folks are dealing with violence and potentially trauma all the time.

0:26:23.2 RM: And that they may need support around housing. They may need financial assistance around housing before they're literally homeless. And they may need that for a long time, or they may need that for a short amount of time, but that's going to depend on the person.

0:26:38.1 MP: That's right. That's right. And now we're talking about persons having the the wherewithal, the know-how, the access to asking for support. These are really complicated ways of being, right? And it just goes back again to those social determinants of health that we were both talking about earlier. People doing what they know. You don't know what you know, all those phrases that we just kind of in passing exchange with one another. There is value to those though. And your spotlight on services being provided after violence has already happened, it goes back to why violence prevention has to be looked upon with very careful considerations about how folks are experiencing trauma, how violence is actually defined, right? And so it's going to take a lot of folks at the proverbial table, folks from differing, similar intersecting identities to just come and speak to what they've experienced around housing. What does that mean for folks, right? 

0:28:17.9 RM: Yeah. Anything else you want to share? I thank you so much for talking today about housing and sexual violence prevention.

0:28:37.2 MP: You know, this work is not intended to be easy, right? It's intended to really demand quite a bit from all of us. And it is gonna take just fervent [chuckle] approach. It's going to take constant and ongoing conversations. It's going to take connection, and folks have to feel safe enough to do that, right? So when we think about violence prevention, right away the word safety is tied to that. And so I think it's just time, it's time that we really consider what safety means as well, and not just consider it from one particular lens or avenue. Thank you for having me, Rebekah. Again, I'm just so humbled and privileged to be here.

0:29:52.2 RM: Thank you so much, Mel. It was great to hear from you, and connect on this super important issue.

0:30:01.7 LM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go. For more resources and information about preventing sexual assault, visit our website at nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@nsvrc-respecttogether.org.

[music]