Safe and Stable Families Director Jamie Perez and Program Coordinator Lilli Crowe share signs of intimate partner abuse – and how survivors can get help.

My mom explained that Jennifer had a habit in the following years of calling her when she got scared.
When Jennifer called that day and I answered, it had been nearly 20 years since she and my mother had first met. Over these years, Jennifer kept my mom’s home phone number and knew that she could call it when she was frightened or needed an answer.

AVLF does amazing work with the people most often taken advantage of in Atlanta: the low-income. In this group, Spanish-speakers are often disproportionately affected by slumlords and unscrupulous employers. I came into this job last year having spoken a little Spanish, but not nearly enough to properly assist these vulnerable clients. I had the opportunity last month to spend two weeks intensively studying Spanish in Monterrico, Guatemala, to help me better support the Spanish-speakers who call our office.

The Washington Post recently published an article reporting that for the second year in a row, Atlanta has taken the title of the most unequal city in the United States. A new report by the Brookings Institute shows that the household incomes of the wealthiest households are close to 20 times the incomes of the most impoverished. In Atlanta, this means that the households in the 98^th percentile have incomes of more than $288,000 per year, while those in the 20^th percentile earn less than $15,000. This means the households that earn more than 98% of the other households in Atlanta make an average of $288,000 per year. These households earn more than 20 times the average yearly incomes of the poorest households.