At the end of October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, two D.C. organizations announced a new coalition to address the issue head-on. The Wanda Alston Foundation, which offers housing and support services to homeless and at-risk LGBTQIA youth, and the local all-queer therapy practice, LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative, have introduced Show Me Love DC, a program to extend free and low-cost counseling services to LGBTQIA survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence.
“No one should have to navigate trauma alone,” Ben Rosen, program director at the Wanda Alston Foundation, shared in the press release announcing the initiative. “Through Show Me Love DC, we’re working to make sure LGBTQ+ survivors have access to the care and support they need to heal.”
The announcement comes in response to a rise in domestic violence in the District. In April, the 51st reported that although D.C.’s overall murder rate had decreased by nearly half year over year, domestic-related homicides and assaults with a dangerous weapon had gone up. Most relevant for the Wanda Alston Foundation, the issues of domestic violence and homelessness interweave, as City Paper has previously reported. According to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, this year’s Point-in-Time Count found that, in D.C., 22 percent of unaccompanied adults and 44 percent of adults in families experiencing homelessness are survivors. Of the 5,363 unhoused individuals accounted for in the 2026 PIT, 12 percent of all adults identified as members of the LGBTQIA community. Rosen tells City Paper he notices the crossover when evaluating entrants to the foundation’s shelter.
“So many of these people have gone through difficult and traumatic life events and have never had a place to process it,” he says. “They get here and they often feel like, ‘Okay, I’ve landed. I can settle.’ But they have all of this stuff that’s coming with them that they haven’t been able to deal with because they’ve been in survival mode.”
The need is particularly high among LGBTQIA people, who, according to research by the Human Rights Campaign, may be more likely to experience intimate partner violence, but may face discrimination from therapists, shelters, and other institutions. SC Nealy, licensed professional counselor and founder of the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative, tells City Paper she started her practice to provide clients with therapists who share their identities and experiences. She first partnered with the Wanda Alston Foundation earlier this year for a joint awareness campaign called Queer Love Shouldn’t Hurt, coinciding with LGBTQ+ Domestic Violence Awareness Day, which is recognized annually on May 28.
That partnership expanded into the Show Me Love DC program, through which the Wanda Alston Foundation supports Nealy’s team with funding from the District’s Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs. Each therapist with the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative already provides pro-bono or sliding scale services—a minimum 25 percent of their caseload. The Show Me Love partnership allows Nealy to increase that percentage while still paying therapists fairly. Meanwhile, it offers queer and trans people the tools to overcome abuse.
“Counseling and therapy and mental health support is so incredibly important for building resilience, healing after trauma, building self-advocacy skills, coping skills, and ability to utilize more resources,” Nealy explains. “We certainly do a lot of work in the counseling space that focuses on mental health, but counseling is also used to brainstorm, to problem-solve, and figure out, ‘How do we get you from place A to place B? How do we find you a place of safety?’”
Applicants to Show Me Love’s counseling program must be survivors of domestic or intimate partner violence who are D.C. residents over the age of 18. In addition to therapy, Nealy hopes to provide proactive, preventative community services to stop abuse before it happens.
“Of course it’s so important to help people through healing after they’ve been in an unsafe relationship, but we could also get programs and workshops out there to teach young adults how to be a safe partner,” says Nealy, noting that very few people set out to become abusive, “but it happens from their own trauma and their own unhealed place. I would really love to see our organization and Show Me Love also teaching healthy relationship patterns, specifically to youth and young adults who are getting into relationships for the first time.”
