Janae Sargent (she/they): Great, awesome. So Gabby, tell us a little bit about the session you're hosting at the National Sexual Assault Conference this year. Gabby Boyle: Yeah, absolutely. So my session is titled Housing Justice as Violence Prevention. And it is focusing on the way that prevention specialists, preventionists, sexual violence organizations, anti-violence organizations in general can plug into doing systems-based housing work. I think that is... something that a lot of folks don't necessarily feel comfortable getting their feet wet in. So I'm hoping that I can kind of break it down and make it more accessible. Ashleigh: Gabby, so from what I know, the little bit of research that I did on your organization, it looks like you all are a local organization in Kansas. And so I'm just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how you all came to take on housing justice as a sexual violence prevention strategy. Like, what did that look like organizationally? Gabby Boyle: Totally. So in 2018, we started to convene the Sexual Violence Prevention Workgroup, which is like an RPE coalition. And part of that process of starting that up was running a needs assessment in our community to evaluate what risk and protective factors were the most prevalent. And one of the things that came out of that assessment was housing. And for a while, for a couple of years, it felt really hard to engage with that strategy. That's a really big topic. As a sexual violence organization, you know, there's always this feeling when you're doing systems of behavior prevention work that there's like mission drift happening. But as you know, 2021, COVID-19 started rolling around. The community conversations about housing became really hard to ignore. And the community conversation about the connection between housing and interpersonal violence was of particular intensity in my organization. We were seeing a lot of clients that were having issues, like having their trauma. exacerbated by housing or who couldn't leave unsafe situations or Janae Sargent (she/they): I really appreciate that you added a four year process of taking on housing work because housing is such a huge and important and daunting. issue to take on, like you have to try to understand housing stuff. I think the vast majority of people would say, yes, we have a housing problem. I'll speak for myself. Then someone says, what do we do about the housing problem? And I'm like, I don't know. What do we do about the housing problem? And I think in our movement. In the movement to end sexual violence, we have always talked about housing within a crisis intervention context, emergency shelters, one night hotel stays after violence has happened. How do you remove someone? How do you make sure that they can keep their residents? And that's really important. And what I really appreciated about your proposal to NSAC is more of the prevention lens of it. and how stable housing contributes to safer communities. You know, I mean, just a tiny bit about myself. I grew up low income and I didn't have stable housing and neither did a lot of people around me. And so I saw those connections experientially of how unstable housing contributes to... risk factors or why someone might be more likely to perpetrate or experience violence. But as a movement, as far as what we do, I feel like that's still something that we're grappling with. So I'm wondering about you individually, is housing, especially from the prevention end of it, something that you've always been passionate about or when did you make that connection for yourself? Ashleigh: Thank you so much, Gabby. It's so interesting that you, where you started and how your trajectory has played out. And I just have to pause and just say, Janaye and I are both animal lovers, so you're in good company. But I also, so my spouse works in the veterinary field and for years, they have told me so many stories of seeing, knowing that some of the animals that have been brought in, there's like an intimate partner violence dynamic happening where like an animal, you know, is trying to protect their owner, their person. and is caught up in that violence. And so it's really interesting that whole like animal welfare world, the veterinary world, I always feel like there's some opportunities there for implementation of trying to intervene and support survivors. So anyways, that's just a side note. But I think, you know, back to you said that this is part of your RPE work. Oh, are you telling Ashleigh: Okay. So Gabby, you mentioned that this work is part of the RPE work happening in your state and that's really exciting. I, you know, we have lots of RPE funded prevention practitioners that listen to our podcast and also folks who aren't receiving RPE funds, but who are still doing work related to violence prevention and housing justice. And so I think one thing that happens a lot, and me included, is I totally see the connection to housing justice and violence prevention. I'm so on board, I get it, I love it. And then I'm also like, but what does that look like for a local sexual assault organization? So... What does your housing justice work look like? Can you give us some examples? Gabby Boyle: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that is a feeling that I had at the beginning of this work and still continue to have. So if folks out there resonate with that, know that you're not alone. Primarily what's, like the RPE program, at least the way that my organization operates it, is it's really flexible. There's a lot of room for creativity. for experimentation, for growth. And so basically what I started to do was just use the time in my, you know, I don't know, like time budget, I guess. Use my time that was funded by our PE to start researching housing and bringing that back to the coalition. and asking, you know, do any of these solutions or does any of this research resonate with you? I was using my time in like the early to middle stages of doing this work also to kind of bolster ongoing housing efforts. So for instance, kind of aggregating all of this different information that we had locally about what the housing crisis looked like and kind of putting it in a centralized place for stakeholders. Like that's something that a lot of people working in housing don't necessarily have the time to do but because I was sort of like outside of the housing service provider world but still connected I could kind of use my time really strategically again to ask the question like okay what would be useful and then to begin to bring that information together. And you know, the result of all of that research and kind of like data aggregation and information aggregation was identifying that this, like was mentioned earlier in the podcast, like this issue goes so much deeper than just emergency sheltering, than just intervention. And we really needed to look at policy that addressed the barriers that people were experiencing when it came to finding housing. So in Lawrence, over half of our community rents their housing and we see the most significant amount of economic burden on renters. So that kind of narrowed down our scope in terms of thinking about, okay, we want to look at tenant issues. And from there, we sort of were identifying what, again, are the barriers to finding housing. And through our research and through my conversations with housing stakeholders, We discovered that there was a significant bottlenecking of our housing choice voucher program. It was very hard to find landlords that were accepting housing choice vouchers. We have like a two to three year wait list for receiving housing choice vouchers. And then in addition to that, we were experiencing a lot of larger apartment complexes being purchased by new management who were refusing to take vouchers. So former people who were housed were now facing, they have to move because new management isn't going to accept the income that they're providing to pay rent. So yeah, that conversation that we were having with housing stakeholders, again, it was like a process of narrowing, of being like, okay, we're working on housing, okay, we're working on renters. Okay, we're working specifically on housing choice voucher issues and emergency rental assistance acceptance. Okay, we're working on source of income discrimination protections. And that's really what we've been doing is just, again, continuing that data aggregation and data creation. Like, we worked really hard to identify through calling landlords, like how many folks were accepting. housing choice vouchers, how many folks were accepting emergency rental assistance, how many folks would work with somebody who had a prior eviction, like just creating that data so that we could really show to the community, like, yes, this is an issue. This is an issue that is affecting X amount of people. Bringing that to not just the community at large, but also like to decision makers and to policy makers and really like kind of. Not necessarily, you know, we can't lobby, but really strongly advocating. Like this is what the data is showing. You know, I've spent 80 hours, um, creating this spreadsheet that really clearly demonstrates like this is a, a problem that we can actually create a solution for, um, and then since that passed, that ordinance passed in February. And since then I've really been working on using the RPE. funding and the time that it allows me to bolster grassroots movements. So we have kind of a new tenant organization, like grassroots tenant organization in Lawrence. And so I was able to use some of the RPE funding to get them connected to a community organizing training to sort of help them and their members learn some concrete skills that they can use. So that Hopefully I can kind of hand off that advocacy torch to the community instead of holding it at my organization forever. Ashleigh: Wow, Gabby, thank you for walking us through that and giving us those examples and the concrete ways that you are engaged in this work. There are so many nuggets in what you said that I'm like, we should just have a whole conversation about that piece and that piece and that piece. Gabby Boyle: Thank you. Ashleigh: But I think one thing that really stands out to me is I think when violence preventionists are wanting to work on these more community level issues that we may have not historically been a part of. I love the way that you, I bet that like the ability for you to use your time to collect data, to create a database, that must have gone a long way in the relationship building because you know, you are bringing something to this work that they, like you said, they don't have time to do. And so I think sometimes we got like tunnel vision that like, what we can do is we can educate people about sexual violence. And really like maybe the best use of our time is to actually support the efforts that are already happening in creative ways that we actually have time to do. So I just, that piece really stood out to me. But yeah, thank you. I want you to come on a web conference and talk more about your work, because it's really, it's fabulous. Janae Sargent (she/they): Mm-hmm. Gabby Boyle: Thank you. Janae Sargent (she/they): I agree. And yeah, I was also as you were Speaking Gabby, I was thinking yeah, how powerful is it that you're bringing all of the skills and the tools that you already have within sexual violence prevention to housing justice? I think in our minds we have this like we have to learn this whole other thing We have to do this whole other thing but preventionists have like a pretty rad skillset, I mean my skill building in this work has been so different than any career that I had a career before this and I feel like I am equipped to to do so many things. I'm like, put me in a seat, set me loose and I'll do the thing. And Gabby Boyle: Right. Janae Sargent (she/they): I think that requires a big shift for people, right? Because like we have all of these skills but we're really working in our silos right now still. So my question for you, you're doing this amazing work and it's making a difference. Why, in your opinion, why do you think that more preventionists are not doing that right now? And what can we do to bring them along into that shift? Because today, I mean, you said it, we have to be working on housing justice. Like, we cannot be talking about safe communities in 2023 and not be talking about housing. Gabby Boyle: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, like we talked about a little bit earlier, like it just feels so hard to even find a foothold in the work of housing. Like it is a huge problem. It is a thousand-piece puzzle. Like there is so much going on. And also, again, to really make sustainable change. you have to start working in policy, which a lot of prevention specialists may already be doing, like policy relating specifically to sexual violence, but they may not necessarily feel comfortable kind of taking those skills and applying them to something like considering policy changes for housing. I think that it is very intimidating to just like dive in. And again, I also think that it's almost impossible to do this work if you are also having to do crisis intervention at the same time. So I'm really privileged in that at my organization I don't, like I only do RPE work and then like community education, consent education. I don't do any direct service and it's a privilege because like I can compartmentalize in my brain. Like, okay, I'm working on housing in a way that is kind of abstractly connected to violence that I know eventually is going to impact violence, but in that short term, you know, is not, it's not intervention. It's not crisis intervention. It's not helping the survivors that I'm talking to every day, right? And so I think that that's one reason as well is that like kind of creating that space in your brain to step away from direct service, to step away from to step away from intervention and to kind of think more deliberately, more slowly, more carefully about the big picture. Like a lot of people unfortunately don't have the space in their position to do that. Yeah, also I think as a side note, like that a lot of folks feel like they can't engage in policy work because so many like federal and state funding prevents lobbying. or prohibits lobbying. And that was something that I was really trepidatious about. Like I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna lose my job. Like I'm researching policies and like presenting, you know, this information to decision makers. So I think it's really useful also to have like frank conversations with grant officers about where that line falls for the grant and what activities someone can and can't engage in when it comes to policy work. In addition to familiarizing yourself on your own time with what that line looks like, there's an organization called Boulder Advocacy that has a lot of really great resources. Janae Sargent (she/they): Love both of you. Gabby Boyle: Yes, they're wonderful. They were like, like I said, when I first started doing this, I was like, I'm going to lose my job. But I didn't. My grant officer was super supportive and Boulder, just having those resources of being like, okay, what I'm doing. is allowable, it's not mission drift, it is connected to sexual violence and I'm not gonna like have a bunch of funding withdrawn for it was really useful. Janae Sargent (she/they): Yeah, that's a question. Ashleigh: That's, Janae Sargent (she/they): I mean, Ashleigh: that's. Janae Sargent (she/they): I feel like some people when they think about policy, they're like, I'm going to the state, I'm going to the Capitol, Gabby Boyle: Thank you. Janae Sargent (she/they): and I'm lobbying for a thing. Policy is also organizational policy. It's also your city council's five year plan. Like so many things are policy. Sometimes it bums me out that we have just like this big umbrella bucket term, because it's zero or 100. Right? Like, policy means AB 2930. And I'm, this whole thing around it, but it's not. And I think maybe we need to work on our terminology around policy too, because I think the vast majority of people that I talk to would not think that going to their city council or their county board of supervisors and talking about housing is bad. They just don't know that's what we're talking about. Ashleigh: Yeah, Gabby Boyle: Yeah, I Ashleigh: and I... Gabby Boyle: think. Ashleigh: Sorry, go ahead. Gabby Boyle: No, no, it's okay. I think I was gonna say like that, um, like you're saying like it's not just going to the state, it's not like really hardcore like doing policy briefs, it's literally just building relationships with stakeholders in your community that have influence. Um, and when it comes to things like for instance, the city strategic plan, generally sexual violence organizations are not included in those conversations, um, because people have such a hard time making the housing justice, education justice, which are often included in, you know, like five-year plans for cities and counties. People have a really hard time making a link between those types of justice and then violence prevention. So a big part of policy work is just kind of elbowing your way into those spaces and being like, we deserve to be here. Like we actually, you know, we have this issue that connects to everything else, whether that be healthcare, whether that be education, whether that be housing. whether that be animal welfare, right? Like we have a space and a voice and like information that is valuable and necessary to create a comprehensive plan or a comprehensive strategy for a city. So, yeah. Ashleigh: Love, love all that. So Gabby, we don't wanna give too much away about your session. We would love to just have you tell us everything that you're going to talk about, but we want, the point of this is we want people to be really excited and look forward to actually being able to attend your session. But just a question about it, what are you hoping that people take away? from your session at the National Sexual Assault Conference. Gabby Boyle: I hope that people take away a feeling of like hopefulness and optimism. When you're doing systems-based work, whether that's in housing or really any other like community systems level risk factor, it sucks. Like it's easy to burn out. It's really easy to kind of get just overwhelmed with all of the work that needs to happen. It's really easy to... experience like that secondhand vicarious trauma of seeing the way that all of these systems interact to cause harm to people. Like it's really hard. And I hope that when people leave my session they have a sense of, okay like if this just one random person, you know, who has no background in any of this was able to do this work, was able to build these relationships in Kansas, which famously a state that is not very open to change, like that they can't see, right? That they can either replicate the work that we're doing or figure out how to replicate the process and make it work for their community. Like, I really want people to feel that optimism and that hope and that sense of like, again, like this is a conversation that we have something to contribute to. And this is a space that we have. connection to and honestly like a res you know this sounds kind of like grand but a responsibility to like we have a responsibility as people working in violence prevention to also be working in spaces such as housing justice, so Yeah, I hope people like me also like I hope they think I'm cool at the end But you know that's secondary to like hoping that they feel empowered to make a change Janae Sargent (she/they): No, that's a real that is a real Gabby Boyle: I'm going to go to bed. Janae Sargent (she/they): thing, especially like working virtually there's something about conferences in this field specifically every time Gabby Boyle: Mm-hmm. Janae Sargent (she/they): I go to a conference, especially when I've done a session at a conference, I'm like, best outfit, like, how can I who am I going to be our people going to take me and I'm like already feeling nervous about that, which is hilarious, Gabby Boyle: Mm-hmm. Janae Sargent (she/they): because it's a month away. Um, so that's very real. I just want to validate I already think you're cool. I will stand in the back of your session with a sign that says like, Gabby rocks. um if that's helpful. Gabby Boyle: Perfect. Yeah, I think that, I mean, on the outfit planning, I'm already like, oh my God, what am I gonna wear? I work from home, all of my clothes are sweat shorts and like, yeah, so, like I said, not as important as hoping people feel empowered to make a change, but still personally important. Janae Sargent (she/they): Mm-hmm. Ashleigh: Absolutely, Janae Sargent (she/they): I'm very... Ashleigh: we have to show up as our whole selves and that is part of it. And okay, my I before COVID, I used to travel a lot and go to lots of conferences and my best advice is to find your power color and build Gabby Boyle: Mm. Ashleigh: your week wardrobe around that. Yeah, so I'm big on power colors. Gabby Boyle: Okay, okay. I feel like my, I am, this might resonate with you, Ashley, I grew up and like lived in kind of like rural spaces for most of my life. So like my power color is like Carhartt Brown. Janae Sargent (she/they): Ha ha Gabby Boyle: And Janae Sargent (she/they): ha! Gabby Boyle: like, I'm just imagining like wearing like, cup rolls like every day of the week. Janae Sargent (she/they): Here's to Ashleigh: Gabby, Janae Sargent (she/they): it. Ashleigh: I will bring mine and we can Gabby Boyle: I'm going to go to bed. Ashleigh: we can be twinning. We can be twinning in Gabby Boyle: Okay, Ashleigh: our Gabby Boyle: perfect. Ashleigh: car heart girls. That's so funny. I love it. Gabby Boyle: it. Janae Sargent (she/they): It's a great point too, because I feel my best self in my car hearts and like a white high neck tank top. And that's not something and like a carabiner on my belt loop, you know, like if you were gonna say dress your coolest to make an impact. That's what I would wear. Is that what I can wear the N sac? I don't know. Actually, you told me probably not. Um, maybe after hours, I'll be just like walking through with my car hearts and be like, this is me. Um, Gabby Boyle: Yeah. Janae Sargent (she/they): it's because you have to find a whole professional style. It's like a whole thing. And you're like, Who am I? You're standing in the middle of Banana Republic with your like $30 that you're like, what's on the clearance rack? Like, who am I? Anyways, Gabby Boyle: Mm-hmm. Ashleigh: Hehehe Janae Sargent (she/they): well, speaking of NSAC and like the broader kind of culture of NSAC and people connecting as a person who's just attending and hosting a session. What is a conversation that you would like to see or hear people having at NSAC this year, whether that's related to your session, the overall theme equity in action, or just like what we should be talking about right now. Gabby Boyle: Totally, that's a great question. And like, I have so many answers. To give this conversation a break from like housing justice, something that I would really like to see being talked about or being tackled in this space is how we can make consent education more based in... awareness and power analysis for all ages. Like I think that the more that I do consent education with teenagers with adults, the more I realize that it's not enough to just teach people how to practice consent, as important as that is, it's also really important to teach people how to think critically about relationships of power and how to be aware of the way that might affect the dynamic of practicing consent. And you know that. In the way that like all sexual violence prevention is connected, like that does connect somewhat to thinking about systems based work, because so much of that is thinking about power. But yeah, I mean, that's a puzzle that I've tried to wrap my brain around so many times is like, how do we take this? issue of power, how do we make something like rape culture feel tangible to people who are not in this space, you know, without totally losing buy-in. I would love if people were having that conversation so that I could like listen in and learn and, you know, take lessons back to Kansas. Ashleigh: That's a great conversation, Gabby. We actually, I'm going to send you a link. We did a web conference. It's been years now, but it was with an affirmative consent researcher and her research is all tied into that. And it was super interesting. And I just I thought the conversation was great. So I'll send you a link to that if you want to check it out or look her up. So it's. Janae Sargent (she/they): Yeah, I will also say just pod. Sorry. I was just going to just, you said that Ashley, I wanted to also, uh. throw something out and then you can ask the last question. So and then I'll say and podcast shouting out podcasts in our movement New Mexico has a great podcast. I love their podcasts or coalition and they I think their last episode is with Sarah Ferrato from Ohio talking about nuancing consent and bringing in those dynamics of power and not letting it be watered down to black and white. So I will put that link in the show notes and the web conference that Ashley mentioned in the show notes And love you, New Mexico. Go ahead Gabby Boyle: Thank you. Ashleigh: I love it. I also love New Mexico and their podcast. Thanks for bringing that up today. All right, Gabby. So for folks that are really interested in the work that you're doing, folks that whether they will be at NSAC, but especially for folks who are not going to be joining us at NSAC this year, how can people get connected to your work? Gabby Boyle: Yeah, that is a great question. There are a couple of different angles here. So the first is that everyone and anyone can email me directly. I'm happy to set up a call, a Zoom, or just share resources over email. If that is what is going to be useful to someone, I'm totally open to that. And the other thing that folks can do is I mentioned earlier kind of how part of the housing justice work that I'm pivoting to doing now is bolstering the work of grassroots organizers in my community. And I would encourage everyone to get connected with them. They have a pretty robust social media presence and on Instagram and Facebook and I think Twitter, their handle is at Lawrence tenants. I'm trying to funnel as much, similar to how in the beginning I started funneling my resources into supporting housing providers. Now I'm really thinking about how I can kind of support that community organizing efforts with the resources that I have now. So I'm really plugged into that. And again, I think that that's something that a lot of prevention specialists are kind of afraid to engage with is like community organizing grassroots. How do we connect as folks in the nonprofit world? But yeah, I would encourage everyone to give them a follow. Stay plugged in with them as I'm pretty active in that space, both personally, but also, in this weird professional, like, here's some money, go do a training together way. And then my email is gaby at stacarecenter.org. Folks can email me and I'm happy to chat. Janae Sargent (she/they): Thank you. I will link all of those and will follow Lauren's tenants right after this web conference Gabby Boyle: Thank Janae Sargent (she/they): via Gabby Boyle: you. Janae Sargent (she/they): PreventConnect. Thank you so much, Gabby, for being here, for chatting with us. I am excited to see you at NSAC and see this session. Ashleigh: Me too. Gabby Boyle: Yeah. Ashleigh: I am really looking forward to it. Gabby Boyle: I also am. I'm a little nervous. So again, we're just all gonna wear our dungarees, get our cheerleading lines ready. Janae Sargent (she/they): Mm-hmm. Gabby Boyle: I'll bring my guinea pigs, put them in the pockets. So we have like, you know, like Janae Sargent (she/they): Please. Gabby Boyle: a whole support crew. But yeah, Janae Sargent (she/they): Mm-hmm. Ashleigh: Yes! I love you so much. Gabby Boyle: I'm super excited. It'll be really great to see everyone and meet everyone. And I appreciate you all and your thoughtfulness with the questions. This is a really great conversation.