Joe Biden Says Chicago Domestic Violence Shelter Brings 'Hope' To Abused Women

Biden: Shelter Brings 'Hope' To Abused Women

Vice President Joe Biden helped celebrate the groundbreaking of a domestic violence shelter in Chicago on Monday -- the city's first new shelter for abused women in more than a decade.

Biden, who championed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 and celebrated its long-awaited reauthorization earlier this year, praised the shelter for bringing "hope" to victims of domestic violence, calling it "one of the most elusive commodities an abused woman needs."

“There’s no prison on earth like the four walls of a woman’s home when she’s battered,” Biden said. “These women are prisoners in plain sight. They walk down the street every day and they are still prisoners.”

The vice president said abused women will find safety and security in the shelter, which will be open by the end of next summer.

“In building this shelter, you’re preventing so much by ending the cycle of abuse, providing an alternative to the street … bringing an end to the psychological damage being inflicted on her and on her children, and just maybe preventing a homicide,” Biden said.

"Everything starts from here,” he said.

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