domestic and sexual violence. At the time, few resources existed for women trying to escape an abusive relationship. Co-founder Tracy Fitzpatrick first encountered the issue as a student volunteer at Rhode Island Legal Services while researching how frequently restraining orders were violated.
“ We all didn’ t really know what to call it even,” she says.“ The whole framework was that it was a problem and often women must have done something to deserve a beating.”
Only two years earlier, Congress had passed the Equal Opportunity Credit Act, making it illegal for lenders to bar women from opening accounts based on their sex or marital status. It would be another eighteen years before the federal Violence Against Women Act established nationwide protections and resources for victim services. Volz notes Sojourner House has come a long way in that time, evolving from a volunteer hotline into a comprehensive victim services agency offering emergency shelter, legal representation, support groups, sexual health advocacy, basic needs assistance and more.
In the past decade, as Rhode Island’ s housing shortage has reached a critical point, the agency has taken on another role: housing developer. Once focused on immediate support, Sojourner House now owns or leases close to 200 apartment units across the state to provide a longer-term solution for its clients, in addition to three emergency shelters.
“ Once the initial crisis stabilizes, clients often still need a considerable amount of support to live a violence-free life,” Volz says.“ And the housing crisis has really just exacerbated this whole situation because it’ s so expensive to rent.”
Even with the extra capacity, the agency is unable to keep up with demand. In 2025, only 11 percent of clients who called seeking emergency shelter could be placed that same day. The RICADV, too, has seen its member agencies impacted by the housing shortage. Where once an average shelter stay was twenty-eight days, now women and their families are staying in emergency shelter six months or longer as they seek out longerterm arrangements. It’ s just one of several economic and policy factors, according to Rios, that contributes to a broader increase in violence.
“ So often when people think about domestic violence, they focus on the individuals. Domestic violence is a societal issue,” she says.“ It’ s not just about something that happens between two people.”
According to Gillian Palmer, law enforcement training and community engagement manager for the RICADV, the two most dangerous times for domestic violence victims is when they try to leave a situation and when they’ re pregnant. A 2022 study found that pregnant and immediately postpartum women in the United States are more likely to be murdered than to die from a pregnancy-related health issue. Firearms also pose a significant risk, with women in abusive relationships five times more likely to be killed if their partner has access to a firearm. Of the twenty-one intimate partner homicide incidents that took place in Rhode Island between 2016 and 2020, nine of them involved guns.
“ With the victim leaving, they’ re getting more autonomy, they’ re trying to get out of the situation, [ and ] offenders feel like they lost that power and control,” Palmer says.“ And they will do anything that they need in order to regain that.”
Robyn remembers the night in 2017 when everything fell apart.
She was asleep at the Pawtucket house she shared with her boyfriend and five children. The couple had been arguing for months about his drinking and money problems, but the issue tonight went far beyond a few wayward bottles and overdrawn accounts.
“ He woke me up accusing me of cheating [ and ] smashed my phone. I ran into the kitchen, and he was behind me with a butcher knife,” says Robyn, who asked to be identified by her first name.
“ The two little ones came into the kitchen, and they were sitting on my lap. And they’ re hysterical, and they’ re like,‘ Don’ t hurt Mommy, don’ t hurt Mommy, Daddy,’” she recalls.“ In my head, I’ m like,‘ I’ m going to die tonight. This is it. This is going to be the end of me.’”
After getting the kids back to bed, he demanded she follow him into the bedroom, where he threw her on the bed and tried to strangle her. She fought back, and they continued arguing until he laid down and fell asleep. Afterward, she went outside the bedroom and cried.
“ I was in shock. I was in disbelief,” she says.“ The next day, he wakes up like nothing happened.”
Robyn knew she had to plan her next move carefully. A few months earlier, she tried to break up with him after he trashed the house while drinking with friends during a football game, only to be told,“ The only way you’ re leaving is if you’ re six feet in the ground.” The house they lived in belonged to his mother, and Robyn had limited family in the area. For months, she’ d been looking for an opportunity to leave, uncertain of where to go next.
At the same time, she tried to maintain as normal a life as possible for her children. She was heavily involved as a parent advocate with Head Start, the federally funded preschool program that her second youngest attended as a toddler. She worked her way up to a position with the National Head Start Association and frequently attended conferences and meetings as a volunteer. A week later, she was at one of these meetings in Nashua, New Hampshire, when she learned her boyfriend had smashed her car with a stick during the night. The next morning, he arrived at the hotel and tried to force his way into her room as she held the door. Someone told her he brought a gun. The hotel alerted local police, but he had already left by the time officers arrived.
Robyn drove the hour and fifteen minutes home to Rhode Island and reported the incident to Pawtucket police. Her boyfriend was arrested and charged with domestic felony assault, strangulation, vandalism and disorderly conduct,
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