- Violent crime has declined for decades in Providence, in other American cities, but one form of violence remains an ongoing threat, domestic abuse.

For 50 years, Sojourner House has worked on the front lines of that silent epidemic, supporting survivors and confronting a problem that often stays hidden.

Some things have improved over time, but advocates say it's not enough.

As the president and CEO of Sojourner House, Vanessa Volz has been confronting the issue head-on for years.

So what would it take to make a bigger impact in reducing domestic violence?

Are current approaches enough, and what's standing in the way?

I'm Ian Donnis, and that's just some of what we talked about in this in-depth conversation.

(soft music) Vanessa Volz, president/CEO of Sojourner House, thank you so much for joining us on "One on One."

- Thanks for having me.

- To start off, tell me how did you get into this line of work?

- I initially got involved with domestic violence advocacy right after college.

I moved out to Portland, Oregon, and I was trying to get involved in the community, and I started volunteering for a local domestic violence agency, and I thought it'd be something I would do maybe for a few months, but I went through the training and then I started volunteering at their emergency shelter, and then I started facilitating a support group for survivors.

And I did that for three years until I left Portland to attend law school.

And it was a really transformative experience.

I don't mean to overstate this, but learning about the struggles that victims experience, working with them on a weekly basis, seeing the courage that they had and really beginning to understand the challenges that they confronted.

And it was an experience that led me to want to pursue law school, led me to want to pursue a career in advocacy.

I went to law school, I practiced law for a few years, and about five years after moving to Rhode Island, I became the director at Sojourner House.

And it's hard to believe, but this month will be my 15th anniversary with the agency.

- The mission of Sojourner House is to assist victims and survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

How has the situation changed since you took over the leadership of the agency in 2011?

- Well, unfortunately, I think the issues of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking are as prevalent as ever.

However, in terms of the support that Sojourner House is able to offer to the community, it has grown exponentially since I started working there 15 years ago.

When I first became the director, we had a small shelter program and a drop-in center.

And over the last decade and a half, we've really expanded our supportive services.

We now have, for example, a counseling program with licensed counselors.

We have a legal program with an attorney and paralegal.

We have a presence in Woonsocket as well as Providence.

And then even more significantly, we've really started to expand the residential support that we provide to survivors and their families.

And while we initially really just had shelter as an option, we now have built out a continuum of residential services, which includes transitional housing, rapid rehousing, and permanent supportive housing.

On any given night, we're actually providing some form of housing to over 175 households.

Across Rhode Island, we lease apartments all throughout the state.

Last count, it was 33 different cities and towns that we actually had a presence in.

And then over the last five or six years, we've actually started to do housing development work.

So we actually acquire and rehab properties and then lease them to families.

So we've really started to try to address this issue from as many different ways as we can, knowing that, again, the challenges are just so great for families who need help.

- I looked up some court information before our interview, and there are more than 5,000 arrests in Rhode Island every year for domestic violence.

That number has remained very consistent over time, even though most categories of violent crime in American cities like Providence and elsewhere have gone down.

What's your explanation for that?

- Domestic violence and sexual assault, they are issues of epidemic proportion.

When you think about the domestic violence movement in particular, it really started to gain visibility in the 1970s, and you saw the emergence of a lot of domestic violence/sexual assault agencies during the seventies.

At that time, those issues were really considered private matters.

Police didn't wanna get involved, family members didn't really wanna get involved.

The emergence of the domestic violence and sexual assault movements really helped elevate these issues as one of public health matters, as issues of safety, of needing to support families.

And that led to increased awareness.

And I think right, you know, fast forward to where we are in 2026, I still think there's work to be done to raise awareness around these issues, but for the most part, there is so much greater visibility in the community across the country, not just here in Rhode Island, about these issues.

So, that said, more people are aware of domestic violence and sexual assault as issues.

More people are aware that it's not behavior that should be accepted, and so therefore more people feel compelled to report it.

Now, I do think it's interesting when you talk about these figures to think about the fact that yes, arrests for domestic violence crimes has stayed pretty consistent.

And I think it's important to note that these are arrests that are made.

There are so many incidents of domestic and sexual violence that are never reported.

And we estimate that probably greater numbers happen that are not reported.

So if we're talking about 5,000 arrests, 5,000 incidents, the total number of incidents, the total number of people affected by these issues directly is much greater than that.

And then you have to think about the domino effect, the effect on a family who witnesses the violence, even if they're not the perpetrator or direct victim, and you really begin to understand the magnitude of this problem.

- We regularly hear about homicides that have some connection to domestic violence in Rhode Island.

Can you be more specific in saying what percentage of homicides in the state have a connection to that?

- I'm not sure I knew the specific number offhand, but yes, I mean, every year, there definitely are a number of homicides that are either directly or indirectly related to domestic violence.

Oftentimes, individuals who are murdered by their abuser have experienced other forms, other patterns of abuse.

And that's why it's so important, if someone is experiencing violence, that they seek help and report it so that the cycle of violence can stop.

Murder obviously is kind of at the end of this continuum, but there are so many behaviors that abusers typically engage in before they murder their victim.

And so we always really encourage people that are experiencing abuse to come forward, to seek help before things really escalate.

- Vanessa Volz, as you say, the greater awareness about domestic violence really came about in the 1970s/1980s.

Many states, like Rhode Island, passed laws in the 1980s requiring judicial updates and training of police.

What could be done that would make a bigger impact in your view on reducing domestic violence?

- Well, a couple things.

We do have better laws in place, but, and it is really interesting, just to make a point on that, when Sojourner House was founded in 1976, marital rape wasn't illegal.

We didn't have restraining order laws.

No-fault divorce wasn't an option.

There wasn't the Violence Against Women Act, which came into play even later.

So there are legal and judicial remedies in place, but again, to your point, there are still so many incidents and so many arrests, which, again, shows the need in our society to raise awareness around how this is not acceptable behavior.

And there does seem to be an undercurrent in our American society that tolerates abuse.

Yeah, and I, you know, obviously, we don't tolerate domestic violence homicides, but when you think about behaviors that people engage in, the way we talk about women in our society, the way that power and control is exerted by certain groups and individuals, how that contributes to these dynamics, which place victims in situations that compromise their safety.

So there's a lot of work that we need to do societally to create true equality among our genders, between men and women, that will go a long way towards helping to reduce domestic violence.

And then, you know, from a practical standpoint, when we look at the resources that are allocated to provide support to victims, they're really minuscule compared to the demand, compared to what is required to help families rebuild their lives.

And you know, even in the 15 years I've been at Sojourner House, when I started at the agency in 2011, we had an organizational budget of less than a million dollars a year.

Fast forward to 2025, which was our last fiscal year, we had a budget of 13 million.

So we have increased our size and scope significantly.

We have more staff members, we have more housing options, and at the same time, we're only able to serve a small percentage of people who reach out to us for help.

And last year's a great example.

Of the hotline calls that we received, we were only able to assist 11% of people seeking emergency shelter in the entire year.

So we turned away so many more people who needed that immediate help, you know, who had nowhere to go that night.

And it's because of resources, you know?

We don't have enough resources to really provide the support that victims and survivors need.

- How do you assess the response by public institutions, the courts, the police, the legislature, et cetera, in our current time?

- I don't always think this issue is taken seriously by the courts, by law enforcement, by even many elected officials at both the state level and the federal level.

I mean, we're seeing a lot of changes happen at the federal level right now.

There is an Office on Violence Against Women under the Department of Justice, under our federal government, and there have already been significant cuts made to the budgets that support programs like Sojourner House that funds agencies like Sojourner House.

So it's clear that this issue is not a priority to the current administration.

We've had a really hard time here in Rhode Island getting designated funding set aside in our state budget for victim services.

And you know, obviously, we all understand there are competing priorities.

We have limited resources as a state, but again, when you think about the magnitude of this problem, how many people are affected and the amount of limited resources that are really allocated, it is a demonstration of the state, how our federal government, how our community really views this issue.

- Vanessa, your organization is named for Sojourner Truth.

She was a black woman in the 19th century who fought for abolition and fought for women's rights.

I wonder how that resonates for you in the current moment, where we see the Trump administration trying to put its stamp on history and trying to undo any kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

- One thing we've always really prided ourselves as Sojourner House is our approach to services.

We really try to be inclusive with the populations that we work with.

We really try to make our services accessible to everyone who needs them.

We've developed some specialized programs, going back to the nineties, where we started a program for the LGBT community, and we've worked with undocumented survivors, we've worked with survivors who don't speak English as a native language.

More recently, we've developed programs for youth, transitional age youth that are, you know, in that age between 18 and 25, and need support and don't always have resources.

So it's something we've always prided ourselves on.

We really understand that abuse can happen to anyone, regardless of their background or situation.

And so we've really cultivated/created programs to serve anyone to make sure that our resources are available.

And so it's been really difficult, I'm gonna be honest, under the current federal administration to see the rollback of so many achievements, right?

And so many areas where we really were starting to feel like we were making some headway.

I teach at Rhode Island College in the gender studies program, and last night, we were talking about history, and we were, I'm teaching a class mostly of first-year students that are still kind of getting acclimated to college.

And we were starting to talk about the origins of the women's movement and the feminist movement, and I put a timeline on the board, and I said, you know, a lot of times when we think about history, we think about history being this straight line.

You know, this event happened in 1854, and this event happened in 1900.

We have this image of a straight line, and I said, "History, if you really study it, is not a straight line.

History is okay, you move forward, and then you move backward, and then you swirl around and kind of wind up where you started, and then you try to move forward."

And it's like, you know, and then I drew the squiggly line, and it was clear a lot of them hadn't really thought about it, but I think we're experiencing that moment right now where we have made certain gains.

We had made progress on a variety of different levels related to women's equality and diversity and inclusion, and you know, naming oppressions that exist in our society, and now we're having to step back from all of that.

I mean, I never thought that I would have conversations with a grant writer about how we should talk about our programs and should we eliminate the number of times we mention women in our grant proposal.

I mean, but these are serious conversations we're having now and having to talk about and consider.

So, you know, we're definitely taking some, not just some steps.

I mean, I think we're taking many steps backwards, and it's going to take a long time to move the needle forward again.

- You talked about going to law school after doing your initial work in the domestic violence field.

I wonder in the course of your legal education, was there a time when it struck you how the law intersected with how this country has treated or responded to violence against women?

- Oh, absolutely.

You know, our legal institution in this country is very patriarchal in many ways, and you know, what stands out is my first semester of law school, taking a torts class and learning about the reasonable man standard, right?

So this idea, for those of us that didn't go to law school, that when a harm occurs, and you're determining, right?

You're determining if injury or any kind of damages need to be awarded, you know, what would a reasonable man do?

Now, over time, this evolved into a reasonable person standard, but that was the foundation of our legal system for a very long time, the idea of what a reasonable man would do.

And obviously, men and women are different, but that was never, you know, the experience of what a reasonable woman might do was never really even part of our legal foundation.

That's just a small example, but I think it's illustrative of the way that we built our legal system.

And when you look at, again, you know, who has power and authority within our legal system, who are the judges, who are the Supreme Court justices, and there still is a great deal of inequality.

- To bring that into the present, your organization, Sojourner House, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

There's much more awareness than 50 years ago about domestic violence and sexual assault.

What are some of the persistent misconceptions and mistruths in that area?

- I think one of the greatest misconceptions about domestic and sexual violence is, I think, as a society, there's still a lot of victim blaming.

And you hear this a lot, especially around sexual assault incidents, talking about how, you know, why did a victim wear these certain clothes or why did a victim stay at a party so late?

And I think it's really important for us to redirect the conversation to why is the perpetrator causing abuse?

Why is the perpetrator sexually violating someone who's not consenting?

Or why is an abuser causing physical or emotional harm to someone that he claims he cares about?

We have a tendency in our society to want to shine light on the victim and show what the victim did wrong, and not so much talk about what the perpetrator should have done differently.

And I also think there's a lot of misconceptions around how easy or not easy it is to leave an abusive situation.

So something I hear a lot is, well, why didn't that person leave sooner?

You know, why did they wait until things got so bad?

I don't think everyone really understands how challenging it is to leave an abusive situation, especially if you have built a life with someone.

If you're married, if you're part of a church, if you have children with someone, it is really difficult just to walk away from that.

It's also, we know, statistically, it's one of the most dangerous times for a victim is when she or he tries to leave an abusive situation.

And so, you know, a victim knows their abuser well and has to weigh that risk of leaving a bad situation, but knowing that the danger could actually escalate.

So I think there's a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding around how challenging it really is for victims to leave.

- Rhode Island passed a law about 16 years ago outlawing indoor prostitution.

It was meant or described as an effort to close a loophole in the law.

I wonder, what is your perspective?

Did that have the desired effect of reducing prostitution in Rhode Island, or did it simply drive it farther underground?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

So a few years ago, we formally established a human trafficking program, and we specifically decided to focus our program on adult victims of trafficking because there were other resources available for minors who had experienced trafficking.

And what we have found over the years is that, you know, Providence and Rhode Island, being located between Boston and New York, that there actually are a lot of trafficking rings and incidents of trafficking.

And so we have served many victims over the time that we've had this program.

And I think, initially, we're a little surprised.

I think we were expecting that most of our clients would be international clients who were being trafficked, but we actually have more domestic victims of trafficking that we serve in our program.

And a lot of that is the result of forced prostitution of, you know, clients being forced into this kind of work, and to your point, you know, underground happening in different environments that are eventually, fortunately, found out by the police, but it still is an issue, you know?

It is still a dangerous situation for victims, and a lot of what we have to do is make sure that we can preserve their confidentiality if we're working with them because there are some real danger threats for individuals who have been part of a prostitution ring.

- What level of trafficking is there in Rhode Island now?

- It's been difficult to establish really good data here in Rhode Island on the numbers of trafficking rings, but, you know, just anecdotally, we have a shelter and transitional housing program for victims of trafficking, and almost every night, those beds are full, and we often have to turn people away who would otherwise want our services.

So I think it's a problem that we don't even really fully comprehend the depth of it because so much of it is hidden.

So much of it happens behind closed doors, you know, under the premise of another business.

What we find sometimes is that victims of trafficking wouldn't even necessarily identify as a victim of trafficking.

They just know someone's helping them pay their bills, and they have to do certain things in order to receive that money, but they wouldn't necessarily call it trafficking because they don't necessarily know the technical definition of trafficking.

So I think that is an area where probably a lot more education and awareness would be helpful for everyone.

- Vanessa Volz, you spoke earlier about how the mission of Sojourner House has grown over time, and your agency now does things like develop housing, and you spoke about how that plays a crucial role for victims in need of a safe place to live.

How did you go about getting the skills necessary to pursue that kind of stuff that was outside the original orientation of your work?

- I mean, I think a lot of it was driven by what the clients needed.

So when I started at Sojourner House 15 years ago, our largest program was an emergency shelter.

You know, people would call our hotline, they would need somewhere to go for the evening or longer and then what we noticed over time is that families, and it is, you know, there are a lot of families who come to us, individuals who have minor children, and a shelter is not a place that anyone wants to stay long term, let alone someone with small children.

We just recognized that, you know, once the immediate danger passed, someone would be in our shelter, but they would still have nowhere to go.

So many of the clients who seek our services are low income.

A lot of our clients have experienced financial abuse.

The abuser has purposely withheld funds from the victim or prohibited a victim from having their own job.

And so a lot of our clients can't financially support themselves.

And so that really created this bottleneck situation where people would be in our shelter for months on end, I mean, and many months on end.

And that was never really the purpose of shelter.

Shelter was really just supposed to be a temporary solution, but our clients would have nowhere to go.

And so that really motivated us to think about longer-term solutions, and it became clear that we needed more housing.

So, you know, and there's been so much discussion here in Rhode Island about not having enough housing inventory at all, but we definitely don't have enough affordable housing options.

So it just really became a natural progression of the trajectory of our work.

You know, knowing that victims need housing, there's not enough housing available, how could we help be part of that solution?

No, I did not come into this role understanding the dynamics of affordable housing and how you braid all the funding together.

So that's been a learning experience for me.

I would say that's one reason why I've continued to stay with the role, because my job has evolved so much during the 15 years that I've been here.

I mean, the role I have now is so different than the position I had when I started at Sojourner House in 2011, and I've, you know, I've been able to learn about so many different areas and really help more survivors in the process, which is why we're here.

- Speaking of your 15 years leading Sojourner House, what are your top takeaways on the opportunities and potential pratfalls of running a growing nonprofit organization?

- The work we do at Sojourner House is so meaningful to me, both personally and professionally, and I'm so grateful that I get to wake up every day and support a team that's doing such hard work to support families who are in need of our services.

I recognize not everyone has a work situation like that that just feels like I'm making a difference, so I really appreciate that.

On the flip side, it's a lot of responsibility running an organization, especially running an organization that is tackling such serious issues.

I mean, we are often working with clients who are literally in life-or-death situations, and that weighs heavily on the staff.

It weighs heavily on me.

You know, when we have to turn someone away because all our beds are filled, and they're saying that they don't know where they're gonna go tonight, I mean, I'll be honest, it's impossible for me to go home at night and not think about my work.

You know, I don't have a job where, okay, at five o'clock, I can clock out and not think about my work.

So that is difficult, right?

It's emotionally draining.

So there's a lot to balance, there's a lot of good that comes out of doing this work, but there's also, there's a lot that I carry, I would say, when I think about how to support the team and how to support the families that are in our care.

- Vanessa Volz, president/CEO of Sojourner House, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you so much for having me.

It's been my pleasure.

- Thanks for watching "One on One" with me, Ian Donnis.

You can find all of our past interviews on the YouTube channel for Ocean State Media.

We'll see you next week.

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