Finding That Safe Space: News About Domestic Violence and Homelessness in California—and Finding Opportunities to Build Narrative Power
PHI’s Berkeley Media Studies Group offers recommendations for advocates to help expand the media’s narrative on domestic violence (DV) and housing security.
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Berkeley Media Studies Group
Although domestic violence fuels homelessness, news coverage that connects the two issues is rare. Journalists have written an abundance of articles about the state’s housing crisis and efforts to end California’s housing crisis, and yet domestic violence—a driving factor behind the crisis—is going largely unreported in news coverage. News coverage rarely elevates the reality that as many as 57% of all homeless women report domestic violence (DV) as the immediate cause of their homelessness, or that 80% of unhoused women with children say they have experienced domestic violence, according to multiple studies.
This report from PHI’s Berkeley Media Studies Group, with support from the Blue Shield of California Foundation, offers recommendations for advocates to help expand the narrative on DV and housing security amid today’s already saturated media environment.
see the full reportFindings
As many as 57% of all homeless women report domestic violence as the immediate cause of their homelessness, and 80% of unhoused women with children say they have experienced DV, according to multiple studies. Despite this, the report found that:
- Just 1% of articles about homelessness or domestic violence published over the course of a year mentioned both issues together.
- Only about 1 in 4 of the articles that mentioned both issues substantively discussed the intersection of domestic violence and homelessness.
- Just one in ten stories about the intersection of domestic violence and homelessness made any reference to structural racism or racial disparities—a driving factor of both domestic violence and homelessness.
Recommendations for advocates
- Build relationships with reporters and editors.
- Identify and train credible messengers, especially those who have been impacted personally.
- Help journalists reimagine what is possible.
- Identify easy wins—opportunities within existing workflows to illuminate the link between DV and homelessness.
- Piggyback off current coverage to further expand the narrative.
Learn more: Five Narrative Change Strategies for Highlighting the Connection Between Housing Insecurity and Domestic Violence
Lunden Mason with PHI’s Berkeley Studies Media Group spoke to Sammie Rayner and Felicia Torrez of the San Francisco housing and safety nonprofit Community Forward about the connection between homelessness and domestic violence—and how that reality is often missing from news coverage. Research conducted by Berkeley Media Studies Group, in partnership with the Housing Opportunities Mean Everything (HOME) Cohort, confirms Community Forward’s observation that the news media usually report on housing and domestic violence separately.
Originally published by Berkeley Media Studies Group
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