Housing insecurity among black women surviving intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: an intersectional qualitative approach

Tiara C Willie; Sabriya L Linton; Shannon Whittaker; Karlye A Phillips; Deja Knight; Mya C Gray; Gretta Gardner; Nicole M Overstreet

doi:10.1186/s12889-024-17965-5

Housing insecurity among black women surviving intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: an intersectional qualitative approach

BMC Public Health. 2024 Feb 16;24(1):501. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-17965-5.

Authors

Tiara C Willie¹, Sabriya L Linton², Shannon Whittaker³, Karlye A Phillips², Deja Knight⁴, Mya C Gray⁵, Gretta Gardner⁶, Nicole M Overstreet⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, 21205, Baltimore, MD, USA. twillie2@jhu.edu.
² Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N. Broadway, 21205, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale University School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁴ Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
⁵ School of Law, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC, USA.
⁶ Ujima, The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community, Washington, DC, USA.
⁷ Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worchester, MA, USA.

Abstract

Background: Housing instability is highly prevalent among intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors, and the coupling consequences of structural racism, sexism, classism, and the COVID-19 pandemic, may create more barriers to safe and adequate housing, specifically for Black women IPV survivors. In particular, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to amplify disadvantages for Black women IPV survivors, yet very little research has acknowledged it. Therefore, the current study sought to assess the experiences of housing insecurity among Black women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) while navigating racism, sexism, and classism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: From January to April 2021, we conducted in-depth interviews with 50 Black women experiencing IPV in the United States. Guided by intersectionality, a hybrid thematic and interpretive phenomenological analytic approach was used to identify sociostructural factors shaping housing insecurity.

Results: Our findings demonstrate the various ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic shaped Black women IPV survivors' ability to obtain and sustain safe housing. We derived five themes to capture factors contributing to housing experiences: challenges with separate and unequal neighborhoods; pandemic-related economic inequalities; economic abuse limitations; and strategies to maintain housing.

Conclusions: Obtaining and maintaining safe housing during the COVID-19 pandemic was difficult for Black women IPV survivors who were also navigating racism, sexism, and socioeconomic position. Interventions are needed to reduce the impact of these intersecting systems of oppression and power to facilitate the resources necessary for Black women IPV survivors to identify safe housing.

Keywords: Black women; COVID-19; Eviction; Housing; Intimate partner violence.

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / epidemiology
Female
Housing
Housing Instability
Humans
Intersectional Framework
Intimate Partner Violence*
Pandemics

Abstract

MeSH terms

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