LEXINGTON, Ky.—The isolation of COVID-19 is causing a spike in cases of domestic violence and substance abuse across the United States, especially for people living in poverty. In Lexington, nonprofits dedicated to helping abuse victims are doing their best to overcome these COVID-19 challenges, but this is no small task.
“A lot of people that become our clients have low income jobs in the restaurant industry and service industry,” said Lindy Karns, president of the board of directors at Chrysalis House, a nonprofit serving women in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. “When they got this steroided-up unemployment, $600 more, they were making two and a half times what they ever made in their whole life. They had plenty of money for drugs, they weren’t very anxious to come get treatment and addiction has soared.”
As for domestic abuse, crisis hotlines run by GreenHouse17, a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of intimate partner abuse, continue to receive an overwhelming volume of calls as families remain largely isolated within their homes.
While these community needs are increasing, COVID-19 is simultaneously limiting the availability of full service care for victims in need.
“Our women live in residential treatment, so they come in, and they used to have 30 days of treatment before they came to us, now they don’t,” Karns said. “Now, under COVID, for two weeks they have to come and quarantine because we don’t know where they’ve been or what they’ve been doing, which means they don’t have some of the traditional peer support that you would normally have … I don’t know if you’ve ever quit anything, whatever it is, being in a room alone while you do that is pretty hard.”
Workers at GreenHouse17 are also finding it increasingly difficult to provide the full services necessary for recovery to individuals housed in hotels due to capacity limits.
“Our rooms that have four beds, we only have two residents in that. A lot of the rooms that have two beds, those just become singles and we save those for folks that are here with children,” said Ryan Koch, a shelter program manager at GreenHouse17. “Our capacity is probably 65 percent of what it was before COVID. We find that we’ve had people in hotels doing long-ish stays, and we weren’t offering them our full array of services. It means a lot to be in a space where other women have gone through what you’re going through, other people have done this before you. A lot of that we just don’t have a good way to offer to our hotel residents.”
Both Chrysalis House and GreenHouse17 allow children to stay in the residences with their mothers as they go through recovery. Although keeping families together is beneficial for the well-being of mothers in treatment, it can also present difficulties for mothers and children alike.
“The kids … they live in small apartments,” Karns said. “They go home to try to do their schoolwork or their homework and there’s six people in the next room, so we got them all earbuds. I mean, things you wouldn’t think about because you just have those, or you’re not living in a noisy, crazy place.”
During COVID-19, these organizations are providing expanded services for the kids in these shelters to help alleviate not only the children’s hardships, but the mothers’ as well.
“Many of our women are not educated,” Karns said. “The thought of them being able to sit with their kids and go through their schoolwork was daunting, and we really feared that it would threaten their sobriety. As a result, we started a tutoring program. We let the kids come to our … very large community center, we have a tutor for them and they do their online work. We support them, we give them two meals a day and two snacks, and, for the moms, it’s a huge relief, cause a lot of them can’t go to work, there’s no work for them.”
One unique thing about GreenHouse17, that is proving to be increasingly beneficial while residents are not allowed to go off-site for work, is that the women living on the 40-acre farm actually have access to on-site jobs. Survivors at GreenHouse17 have the option to work through the growing season harvesting vegetables and earn a stipend for their work. Other work programs offered on the farm include learning to make handmade soaps, lip balms, candles, and other small gifts to be sold on the GreenHouse17 website.
“The entry point for the residents is that two or three women, depending on what’s needed at that time of year, can apply to be on stipend and earn up to $600 over the course of, I think that might be six weeks’ worth of work,” Koch said. “They work two or three days a week in the morning, we try to keep them out of the heat of the day.”
Creating these products not only helps the nonprofit to share its story as people give these gifts during the holiday season, but also teaches survivors valuable skills that may help them once they leave the farm.
“Residents have a chance to go do a make-it take-it,” Koch said. “They’re learning how to make … handmade soaps and different things like that, and they’re learning how to can and pickle and jar the produce. That’s super empowering, that there’s a marketable skill that people can leave with, in addition to just working for however many weeks on the farm and earning that cash.”
The goals of GreenHouse17 and Chrysalis House go far beyond simply treating addiction or providing recovery care for victims of intimate partner abuse. Oftentimes these issues are accompanied by mental health needs, lack of education and poverty. By working to address all of these issues, these nonprofits are doing everything they can to get survivors' lives back on track.
“One time I was at Dudley’s having dinner and one of the waitresses said, ‘I’d like to talk to you,’” Karns said. “She took me aside and said ‘I want to thank you for saving my life ... You’re the president of the Chrysalis House board, right? … Well, I was there. My life was a wreck. I was in terrible shape. Now I’m in college, I’m living at home with my mom, I’m working here and I’m making decent money. I’ve met somebody and I’m gonna get married. If I hadn’t gone to Chrysalis House, I wouldn’t have any of that, and you helped make that happen for me.’”
For nonprofit workers, seeing their survivors succeed is a reward like none other. Although COVID-19 may present further obstacles moving forward, these nonprofits plan to continue doing all they can to serve the community.
“When this all opens up, the addiction that’s going to come out from under it is going to be a lot,” Karns said. “I would like to see us poised and ready to provide the best possible treatment to women.”
More information about Chrysalis House can be found on their website.
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