Cambridge 'Safe House' Network Shelters Women

Several years ago, a group of Cambridge women banded together to organize a "Take Back the Night" march. But when the protest was over, their coalition didn't fall apart--deciding they could do more to help women than wave signs, they formed the Cambridge Safe House Network.

By now the program has mushroomed to include 60 homes, most in the Cambridgeport and Riverside neighborhoods, but some in all corners of the city. Each of the houses keeps a green light in the window; each opens its doors to women who need a refuge from crime.

Modeled on programs in Portland, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, and the Dorchester section of Boston, the Cambridge network is only now, after 2 1/2 years, beginning to "become established in the community," Diane Lonsway, a local coordinator, said last week.

A major problem has been publicity; in an effort to remind women of the existence of the shelters, organizers have posted signs and gone on the radio. Now they are walking door to door in the Cambridgeport community.

"The safe houses are not used that much, but they have been used," Lonsway said. In many situations, the women who have fled to green-lighted homes have come from "battering situations" in their homes, Lonsway adds.

Others who have used the shelters include women accosted by attackers while simply out for a walk, she adds.

"When [a woman seeking help] comes to the door, the first thing the person in the safe house should do is make sure they aren't putting themselves in danger by letting them in." Lonsway says. "Sometimes the owner will only let them stand in the hallway, but at least they're off the street." Christine Maguire, who works with the Dorchester Green Light program, adds.

Once inside, the victim should be quickly examined to make sure they don't need immediate physical treatment. Other decisions--about what kind of medical help to seek, or whether to call the police--are left up to the woman. Lonsway adds. "We encourage them to use their own resources."

The bottom line philosophy of the program is simply to "give women places to go where they know they'll be safe, where they know they'll not be harmed any more," Lonsway says.

She adds, however, that the "failure" of the police to adequately protect women is a major reason the program is needed. "We're not able to depend on the police--it's just not happening," she says.

Women can't depend on men either, she adds, and for that reason men are not allowed to run safe houses. "If a woman has just been raped, she may not be eager to see another man," Maguire explains. She adds that occasionally men seek refuge at the safe houses as well; "It's up to the owner to let them in. The commitment they have made is to help protect other women," she says.

When the program began in 1979, organizer Marie Herbert explained to the Cambridge Chronicle crimes against women underlined the sexism in society. "That it can go on and on and so little has been done says something about women's value in society. We feel that the level of violence is directly related to the response to it," she said.

And women currently in the program agree. A string of rapes in the Cambridgeport area last summer didn't bring adequate police response, but did, according to one participant in the safe house network who asked not to be identified, "heighten the visibility of the entire problem--and of solutions like this one."

"Women are more aware, and they're taking more precautions they hadn't taken before," Lonsway said, adding that organizers of the safe house system were holding monthly training sessions for women interested in the program.

The two-and-a-half hour training session provides women with resource lists and practical first aid information, as well as, perhaps, a sense of solidarity. "We're women helping each other," Lonsway says.