Sojourner House Marks 50 Years by Asking What Survivor Support Should Look Like Next

Supporting someone after abuse rarely comes down to one phone call, one court case, or one safe place to stay. Housing, legal protections, health care, workplace policies, technology, and financial support can all shape what happens next. As Sojourner House marks 50 years in Rhode Island, the organization is using the milestone to look forward, asking what survivor-centered care should become in the decades ahead.

That question sits at the center of Reimagining Victim Advocacy: A Conference on Housing, Justice & Innovation, taking place Friday, October 16 from 8am-4pm at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick. The gathering brings together people working in victim services, law, health care, education, housing, public safety, research, and prevention.

The agenda tackles some of the places where those systems overlap, and sometimes fall short. Sessions will examine coercive control, technology and AI in survivor safety, victim compensation, judicial training, workplace protections, and legal gaps that can complicate a survivor’s path forward.

Housing gets particular attention. Several sessions focus on moving survivors from crisis toward long-term stability, including conversations about safer housing models and how victim-services organizations can become housing developers themselves. That work already reflects Sojourner House’s own evolution. In addition to shelter, therapy, legal services, support groups, and case management, the organization has spent the past five years developing residential properties leased to victims and survivors of abuse.

The conference’s keynote comes from Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us and the memoir Women We Buried, Women We Burned. Her work has explored intimate partner violence not only as a private crisis, but as an issue shaped by culture, policy, and the systems surrounding survivors.

That wider lens makes the 50th anniversary feel less like a retrospective and more like a checkpoint. Since 1976, Sojourner House says it has supported more than 75,000 people affected by domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Now, the conference turns attention toward what the next 50 years of that work could require. Visit SojournerRI.org for tickets, conference details, and more information about Reimagining Victim Advocacy.