ABSTRACT
The road to safety for women who are victims of domestic violence is neither straightforward nor easy. For battered women, access to independent economic support and the ability to support an independent household is often a critical factor in rebuilding a safe life for themselves and their children (Brandwein, 1999b; Davis, 1999; Lyon, 2000). Poor women without family resources, as well as women who are blocked by their abusers from access to family resources, have used public family assistance as an important resource in their strategies toward building economic independence from their abusers (Brandwein, 1999a). Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the federal family assistance program enacted with the New Deal Social Security legislation and expanded in the 1960s civil rights era (Quadagno, 1995), along with food stamps, Medicaid, and other social welfare programs, were integral tools within a system of battered women services built by feminists in the 1970s (George, Sharma, & Sabina, 2004).
