Chicago event sheds light on justice hurdles for domestic violence survivors

CHICAGO (WGN) – An event held Wednesday aimed to help women impacted by domestic violence learn about programs that exist just for them.

As women like Yolanda Carter attend events for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, they say they can’t help but think about the past.

“My partner of eight years on and off, he decided that he wanted to take my life, so he beat me with a hammer and left me in a pool of blood to die,” Carter recalled.

Carter said that incident happened nine years ago, as she was nearly beaten to death in her sleep. When she woke up from the attack at her Hyde Park home, many of her facial bones were shattered. One of her eyes was so severely damaged that it had to be removed.

“I had to undergo one reconstructive surgery to repair all the damage. I have a metal plate on my skull. I had a face full of metal,” Carter said.

Since the attack, Carter said the medical bills continue to haunt her.

She later heard about and applied for reimbursement through the Illinois Crime Victims Program, which provides financial assistance to victims of violent crimes. However, she said her application was denied because she didn’t have all of the requested receipts.

“It affected me a great deal because I was still not able to work. I have a disability, so just living on the fixed income is really, like, very hard right now,” Carter said.

Compensation for victims of domestic violence was a focus of the Illinois Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice policy retreat held Wednesday in Chicago, which had dozens of violent crimes survivors in the room. 

“While the program has made a lot of law changes over the past few years, what we continue to see and what we heard from today is that still across the state, a lot of crime victims do not know about the program, or they faced barriers and even applying for the program with no help,” event coordinator Aswad Thomas said.

Victim compensation reform wasn’t the only topic of discussion on Wednesday, as advocates also fought to reform Illinois crime-free housing laws, local ordinances that encourage or require private landlords to evict tenants based on their level of contact with law enforcement.

However, advocates argue that some domestic violence victims have been impacted for the act of calling police to report an incident.

Thomas said he hopes to get the ideas shared Wednesday in front of people who can bring change.

“I’m looking forward to taking a lot of these ideas today and brining some of those ideas to our legislative champions that we hope in the next session in 2026,” Thomas said.