STEUBENVILLE — Her name is Jody and at 51, if there’s a secret to a lifetime steeped in happiness, she’s the first to admit she never found it.

Abused and molested from the age of 4, “I ended up getting on drugs,” she said.

“That’s when the abuse just kept happening, kept happening,” she said. “You get immune to it .. .not really immune, you never get immune. It just puts you in isolation, drugs relieve you.”

Once she needed a ride to pick up food at Urban Mission but did without because she wasn’t willing to pay the price the man asked of her. Another time a man dropped her off “in the middle of nowhere” because she wouldn’t turn a trick for him. She’s been raped by her own brother.

“You wouldn’t believe how dangerous it is in this little town for women,” Jody said. “You feel like a sheep among wolves, when you’re vulnerable and by yourself. Every day it’s something … You’re subject to anything when you’re alone and when you’re a woman.”

Jody is that faceless person people see on the street and then look away. She knows it. On the bad days, she looks away, too. Or takes drugs. When she can, she comes to the Friendship Room to get food, warm up, or just talk to someone.

“I can come here, they’re like family to me,” she said. “This is where I come a lot of times, before or after I’ve been abused. It’s my safety net here. This is my go-to place. I’m here so much, people think I work here.”

She’s part of the Friendship Room’s Anti-Violence Against Women Initiative-Common Spirit program, a three-year grant-funded partnership with Trinity Health System aimed at helping victims of violence and trafficking heal physically and emotionally.

If they’ve learned one thing in the months six months since the partnership started, the Friendship Room’s Molly McGovern said it’s that victims don’t fit a mold: They can be young, old or in between; high school drop outs or women with careers.

They can be any one of us.

“What Friendship Room does is bring awareness,” said Marci Sabo, director of behavioral health services at Trinity. “These are everyday people who go to the grocery store like everyone else, take their kids to school…we don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. We bring awareness to them.”

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports police in Ohio logged 76,203 calls involving domestic violence in 2019, with countless other incidents going unreported, and that in the year ending June 30, 2020, there were 109 victims of domestic violence homicide in the Buckeye State — among them four children.

Trinity’s grant — $118,000 over three years — allowed the Friendship Room to hire Alex Taylor, former local television personality, as a “community outreach missionary, someone to act as a direct liaison, helping women.” Together with McGovern and other regulars, they work to address not just the immediate needs of the women who come to them for help but also work on long-term solutions and education to “get them out of the cycle of abuse.”

“Being able to have another body, with the mission being women-driven, we can service them more fully and intentionally,” McGovern said.

And if things work out as expected, McGovern said they’ll be able to reapply for another round of funding when the inaugural grant runs out.

“I think the depth of need in the community was really eye-opening for me,” Taylor said. “It’s not always who you think — we’re used to seeing people on the streets and making assumptions, you have this idea of what homelessness looks like in your head, what a prostitute might look like in your head, what an abusive situation might look like in your head, but that’s not what we see down here. What we see is very different in reality: We see single moms slipping through the crack financially, we see women working the streets who have been forced into that life, and women working jobs and appearing successful.”

So far they’ve been able to work with 75 women being abused, trafficked or both.

“We work to connect them with the necessary resources,” she said. “As always, Friendship Room works as a field hospital, we’re always open and on the ground, I think that makes a big difference. A lot of times they come to us after hours — a lot of activity happens late at night, that’s when women can escape these situations under the guise of getting food or clothing, and they can make those contacts.”

McGovern said the success of the Anti-Violence Against Women Initiative begins with building relationships.

“It’s really important to build relationships with these women, to gain their trust and to educate them as to what abuse is,” she said. “It’s stunning how often they aren’t even aware they’re being abused…they grow up in homes where abuse and trauma are inflicted, so they think it’s normal.”

Thanks to their partnership, those with immediate medical needs can be referred to Trinity immediately. They work closely with the hospital’s behavioral division to form long-term plans “for those who are willing and wanting that pathway to safety,” Taylor said.

Trinity currently has four registered nurses who have completed the Sexual Assault Nursing Examiner’s program, which means they’re specially trained to assist teens and adults who have been sexually assaulted or trafficked and, when indicated, gather forensic evidence. “They’re not judged,” Sabo said. “They’ll get the care they need.”

Friendship Room also has a safe house where women can stay while the staff works to get them relocated. McGovern said they can connect their guests to mental health professionals while they work to get them relocated.

She said education is always a priority. “I like to say we ’embrace, educate, empower and envelop’ women,” she said. “Individual people, I’m not talking about groups. I’m talking about reaching all women, whatever their current situations are…and working toward a transformation — breaking the shame of violence, breaking the shame of addiction, breaking the shame of just being trapped. We’re really working to break the dependence model to empower and help women become independent.”

That kind of transformation isn’t going to happen overnight.

“That’s why we think we have to have a long-term commitment to each other, and it’s multifaceted. We work to get them into hospitals, get them checked out, then look at them from a mental health standpoint … we work (to heal) body and mind, and then connect with them spiritually–that starts to bring transformation. But it’s so important when we start, that we start with the physical, whether its food or clothing, then the hospital works with them on the mental health aspect. Once they’re whole in mind and body, the spirit can be served — that starts to bring transformation.”

McGovern said it all starts with building trust.

“When you sit and share with another person, one-on-one in friendship, it’s not a power struggle,” she said. “It’s two people, sitting down, sharing truths about ourselves. That’s how we cultivate relationships and make an impact.”

McGovern said being street-based, with help available around the clock, they’re able to reach women who otherwise might slip through the cracks.

“It enables us to do interventions, get them into behavioral health, into housing away from (the abuse). We can do crisis stabilization…It’s all made possible because of our relationship with Trinity.”

Jody sings the program’s praises.

“The people and all that, they give of theirselves — they love, they love everybody,” she said. “They show compassion and patience. They don’t look at you for your bad points, they look at you as a human being. They know everybody’s name and they call you by your name.”

She said it brings hope to women for whom hope is traditionally in short supply.

“When I don’t do drugs I’m here, and it relieves it,” Jody said. “I can get to people here, they’re only a phone call away. I have my ups and downs with ’em. I’m not always on them … Drugs take over and then you live in bubble of shame and guilt, feel like it’s your fault. There’s really not much you can do. You try to get somewhere safe, with people that care about you. I’m not going to sit in an office with somebody educated … it doesn’t feel the same. I feel like they’re listening because they get paid for it, not because they care about you or because they can give you helpful advice. There’s so many that don’t make it and you never hear anything about them, do you? They just disappear, you don’t hear about them. Some people take them and sell them in other states and you never hear from them again.”

McGovern said the key is to be present when the victims of the abuse are present, no matter what time of day they present themselves.

“Real life is not convenient,” she said. “It’s about dedicating yourself to be present … be here in the middle of the night, be here on holidays. They know someone is here, ready to help them, and that we’ll have a consistent, safe environment for them to come to.”

McGovern said when Friendship Room “needed more people to be present to fill those needs, that’s when Trinity stepped forward to assist us.”

“We start with baby steps,” she noted. “I’ve sat in hospitals with (victims of abuse), I’ve got to the ER with them. I’ve gone to Pittsburgh when they’ve been taken there and sat with them. We try to treat people as if they’re family members, go and sit with them. Sometimes it’s going and sitting with them, sometimes it’s sitting and playing cards with them, building friendship, building relationships. It’s all hours, like parenting, there’s no set time for it. When people feel like they’re being treated like a number or statistic, they’re not going to trust you. But when they realize you know what their favorite color is, what they like to eat or drink or they know when you call at 2 a.m., that someone will be there, there to open the door for them, they trust you.”

She said it’s a long process, made especially challenging because sometimes to help the abuse victim “you have to be willing to have a relationship with the abuser” in order to build trust.

“Sometimes we have to build a relationship and try our best to help the whole situation until the woman can feel safe enough to come alone or is allowed to come alone,” McGovern said. “That’s the challenge, but it’s imperative that you do it, otherwise you’re never going to help them. Getting them to trust you is the first step to getting them to accept real help from professionals. We have to get them to understand and we have to be trustworthy people — have to do the long-haul hours, love and care about them. You can’t fake it. Because people are poor and abused does not mean they are stupid. It’s really important to educate people what abuse is, what bullying is, what oppression is, and you don’t have to stay.”