Recognizing Needs of Battered Women : Costa Mesa’s Action Aids Program Giving Victims Practical Help in Rebuilding Lives

Battered women need many forms of help, from a safe place to stay to instruction in how to put their lives back together. The Costa Mesa City Council wisely recognized those needs with its recent approval of rented space at the Rea Community Center to two women who plan to help women fleeing abusive spouses.

Frances Hayward, an arbitration lawyer from Laguna Niguel, and Marilyn Curtin, an image consultant, expect to get referrals from Orange County shelters for battered women. Hayward said the shelters will tell her and Curtin when their clients are ready to look for work, and the two partners will help prepare them for the job search.

Hayward said she and Curtin will assist job-seekers in preparing resumes, getting clothes and looking for employment. Those are valuable services. During the past year, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson has brought heightened awareness of spousal abuse. Police reported being called to Simpson’s residence a number of times after Nicole Simpson complained that her husband beat her. Particularly chilling was an audiotape of her pleas for help to police.

Nicole Simpson’s parents and two sisters have involved themselves in the campaign against spousal abuse, appearing in November at a Dana Point fund-raiser for Interval House Crisis Shelters, which runs four facilities in Orange County.

Workers at shelters for battered women said that although the problem exists year-round, the holiday season is often especially difficult and leads to increased requests for help early in the new year. Men accustomed to striking their wives realize even more at this time of year that they are falling short of their hopes and expectations, according to one psychologist. Add in increased alcohol consumption at holiday parties, plus the financial burdens of buying gifts, and the propensity for violence increases.

Hayward said that without the “great generosity” of the Costa Mesa City Council, which offered an “inexpensive” rate to rent the community center room, the assistance program could not have begun. Huntington Beach officials, too, have recognized the need to help residents through the city’s decade-old Project Self-Sufficiency.

The program helps single parents without job skills, including those who have left a violent mate, by finding them housing, education and employment. The target is getting them off public assistance. The programs are good examples of government helping those who need it.