LGBTQ+ people experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at substantially higher rates than cisgender and heterosexual individuals. The data is sobering:
- 40.4% of lesbian women experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime vs. 32.3% of heterosexual women.
- 56.9% of bisexual women experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime vs. 32.3% of heterosexual women.
- 37.3% of bisexual men experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime vs. 28.7% of heterosexual men.
- 31.1% of transgender people experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime vs. 20.4% of cisgender individuals.
LGBTQ+ people also have higher barriers to seeking and getting help, fearing mistreatment from social workers, healthcare workers and law enforcement officers who may be homophobic or transphobic. Finding a welcoming emergency shelter may feel almost impossible.
According to a research review by the Williams Institute of 42 IPV studies, LGBTQ+ individuals “do not believe [emergency] shelters to be helpful” and generally are concerned that “shelters are not open to them.”
With these fears in mind, one longtime Ohio agency seeking to do more LGBTQ+ outreach has found an alternative to emergency shelters right in its own neighborhood: local hotels.
“There are times when an LGBTQ+ survivor just doesn’t feel comfortable in a shelter,” said Teresa Stafford-Wright, CEO of the Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center in Akron. “Hotel placements mean that we’re not turning anyone away.”
With a newly awarded grant, Hope and Healing’s goal is to grow the program so that checking in to these hotels can be the first step towards LGBTQ+ survivors’ essential plan for safety.
A half century of support
The Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center began in the 1970s as a grassroots initiative to support IPV survivors in Summit and Medina Counties.
Eventually combining the legacies of the Akron’s Battered Women’s Shelter and the Rape Crisis Centers in Summit and Medina counties, Hope and Healing now provides comprehensive, free trauma-informed services for survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence, sexual violence and human trafficking. Those services include emergency shelter, court advocacy, hospital advocacy, therapy, support groups and case management.
Teresa Stafford-Wright, CEO of Hope and Healing, said the resource center is always keeping an eye out for the most marginalized individuals in the community.
“Oftentimes, the most marginalized are the individuals who are victimized the most,” she said.
The work has become increasingly challenging, with rates of sexual and domestic violence continuing to rise. Stafford-Wright said that Hope and Healing has seen a 25% increase in survivors accessing their services for the first quarter in 2026 vs. 2025.
“Those numbers remind us that the work that we’re doing is crucial, important and life-saving,” she said.
An Educational Start
An educational grant from the Akron Community Foundation in 2023 helped Hope and Healing gain a better understanding of the needs of the LGBTQ+ community. Staff participated in a series of trainings from LGBTQ+ professionals with the goal of reducing barriers that LGBTQ+ clients might encounter in accessing care. The core theme of the training was trust.
“We had to look past why we see ourselves as trusted people and instead look deeply at why someone from the LGBTQ+ community might not see us as a trusted entity,” said Stafford-Wright.
Changes resulting from the training included educating staff on the use of pronouns and the needs of trans survivors, expanded outreach to LGBTQ+ community leaders and allowing more room in the process for clients to self-identify their names, gender and relationship status.
“Sometimes the larger system tries to put people in boxes, especially on forms,” said Stafford-Wright. “We needed to slow down, stop using a broad-brush approach to how we were engaging clients and just listen.”
The results were immediate.
“We saw a 10% increase in the number of LGBTQ+ survivors that we were serving,” said Stafford-Wright.
Checking in
With staff education firmly in place, Stafford-Wright said it was important to listen to what LGBTQ+ clients were actually saying about the barriers they were encountering.
“We had one LGBTQ+ client who came in and said the shelter just wasn’t right for them,” said Stafford-Wright. “We were able to place them in the hotel for a few days, which was the perfect transition for them to get to a safe place. That was a win, and we want to provide that option for more individuals.”
The Gay Community Endowment Fund of the Akron Community Foundation recently awarded Hope and Healing $3,000 to grow the program.
Here’s how it works:
- Survivors call Hope and Healing’s 24-hour hotline (330-374-1111), a crisis number that serves as a portal to all of their services.
- A trained crisis specialist will speak with the survivor, asking questions to ensure they are a survivor who is actively fleeing intimate partner violence and that their needs are appropriate for the organization.
- If appropriate, the specialist will highlight emergency shelter options depending on availability, which includes 110 beds in Summit County and 25 beds in Medina County.
- Survivors may self-identify as LGBTQ+ during the call and share any special accommodation requests they may have for shelter. If Hope and Healing is not able to meet those requests, a stay may be coordinated at one of the hotels with which the agency has cultivated a relationship (unidentified in this article for obvious safety reasons).
“Typically these hotel stays are around five days or so, and at some point in time we should be able to transition that person into shelter or help them identify another safe space,” said Stafford-Wright.
Hotel challenges
Sheltering LGBTQ+ survivors in a hotel comes with a unique set of challenges. As these individuals are not physically in the shelter – where core services like food, toiletries and engagement with their case manager is provided in person – they can’t be just left to “fend for themselves.”
“We can’t just say, ‘Hey, you can go to the hotel for a week and we’ll see you in a few days,’” said Stafford-Wright. “You have to think about the same things as though this person is going to be going into your shelter, helping them meet their basic needs, especially because when survivors are running, they’re often leaving only with the clothes on their back.”
In addition to ensuring that they have clothing items, toiletries and food – sometimes in the form of gift cards so they can purchase food on their own – Hope and Healing transports survivors back to the shelter or to administrative offices for counseling or has staff go directly to the hotel. The goal is to treat the hotel like an extended part of the shelter, offering the same wraparound services that are available in the shelter.
“They need to understand that it’s not ‘out of sight, out of mind’ when they’re in the hotel,” said Stafford-Wright.
Another key feature was finding hotels that allow pets, as the emergency shelter allows survivors to bring pets that they may have arrived with – an accommodation that was crucial to mimic in the hotel for clients’ well-being.
“Thankfully, we were able to provide that pet service in the hotel as well,” said Stafford-Wright.
‘Do the work’
For other agencies wanting to better support LGBTQ+ survivors, Stafford-Wright said a great place to start is by ooking at the demographics of the agency’s staff.
“Do you actually reflect the population you’re serving?” she encouraged her colleagues to ask themselves.
Stafford-Wright said that next steps can include engaging the LGBTQ+ community as paid consultants to review forms and evaluate websites for inclusivity and take a walk through the shelter to provide feedback on what works and what doesn’t.
But above all, she stressed the importance of staff members looking inward first.
“Check your biases, identify your blind spots and really educate yourselves,” she said. “Do the work, and the trust with LGBTQ+ clients will follow.” 🔥
This work was supported by the Gay Community Endowment Fund of the Akron Community Foundation.
IGNITE ACTION
- Contact the Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center hotline at 330.374.1111, or text the hotline number to message with a trained advocate to learn more and make an appointment today.
- If you are experiencing sexual violence or abuse, please call RAINN’s free, confidential hotline at (800) 656-HOPE, text HOPE to 64674. To chat live, click here.
- If you are a young LGBTQ+ person in crisis, please contact the Trevor Project: 866-4-U-Trevor.
- If you are an transgender adult in crisis, please contact the National Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
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