For domestic violence survivors, calling for help can be deadly. Or cost them their home.

A mother called 911 in a desperate plea to protect herself and her child.

Her ex-boyfriend had made his way into her apartment in Los Angeles County and was attacking them, she said. In a foreboding call that perhaps signaled this incident would not end well, the 911 operator said, “Walk away so I can talk to you!” Minutes later, 27-year old Niani Finlayson was shot dead. And the child she wanted to shield watched her die. In the end, it was not her ex-boyfriend who killed Niani; it was the police.

For Black women, calling the police or any emergency services has a higher likelihood of ending in death. It may also lead to eviction.

Several states have “crime-free” ordinances, which can discourage domestic violence victims from calling emergency services. Once a person calls the police a certain number of times, they may be considered a nuisance and vulnerable to eviction, even if they are a domestic violence victim. This means that in a crisis, a domestic violence victim is caught in a cruel quandary of needing emergency assistance but weighing whether their safety matters more than their housing.

These laws should be banned in all states.

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Nuisance ordinances hurt Black women disproportionately

Most nuisance ordinances appear facially neutral. Their language is universal and does not specify a group based on their identity.  However, they disproportionately impact women of color, who make up a greater percentage of domestic violence victims.

In Minnesota, Black women are 7% of the population but 40% of the domestic violence victims.

In one prominent study, out of the 503 properties cited for nuisances in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 319 were in Black neighborhoods, compared with 18 in white neighborhoods, 14 in Hispanic neighborhoods and 152 in mixed neighborhoods.

These disparities led the American Civil Liberties Union to publish a 2015 report on nuisance ordinances and challenge their constitutionality in court.

Over the past decade, the cases have uncovered the way law enforcement see helping Black women as a threat and a waste of resources (which stands in stark contrast to many white residents who use the police to assert dominance over a Black person for mundane activities like having a lemonade stand, sleeping or just existing).

In one of the cases brought by the ACLU, Rosetta Watson was violently attacked by her former boyfriend, prompting her to seek emergency assistance in Maplewood, Missouri. The city responded by enforcing the nuisance law and commencing legal proceedings to forcibly remove her from the property.

After a hearing, a government official stated that Maplewood police officers have been "put at risk.” Ultimately, the city issued a revocation order forcing Watson to leave the property. As a result, according to the lawsuit, she lost her Section 8 voucher, moved eight times and was homeless.

Risk is inherent in a police officer’s job. The unspoken truth here is that Watson, like many Black women, was not seen as worthy of that risk or protection.

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In another case, Tanica Lewis secured a personal order of protection against her ex-boyfriend. Her landlord then sought to evict her because they likened her ex-boyfriend to a “guest” rather than trespasser when he forced his way onto the property and damaged it. Both cases show that there is no real separation between abuser and victim.

Nuisance ordinances often operate by pressuring the landlord to start an eviction case. If they do not, the landlords may also be found in violation of the law. But this case highlights that even where a local nuisance ordinance isn’t at play, landlords might still move to evict a tenant due to domestic violence simply because they want to.

We see this dynamic in other types of eviction cases where the actions of one person lead to the eviction of everyone, whether it's a neighbor complaining of noisy children or a one-time house guest caught with marijuana. In nuisance eviction cases specifically, there’s an undercurrent that the victim is at fault for the eviction for failing to regulate her household − and it plays out in cases where she has no control over another person, like her abuser.

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It's time to ban crime-free ordinances

These incidents occurred more than a decade ago. What has changed since then?

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice won a landmark settlement against a California city to end its crime-free ordinance. That same year, the Violence Against Women Act, a federal law enacted in 1994 providing housing protections for domestic violence victims in federally assisted housing, was updated to ensure “the right to report crimes and emergencies from one’s home.”

Last year, the California attorney general’s office advised all counties that the crime-free ordinances may run afoul of the law and suggested they review enforcing them. This comes after the governor of the state signed the Right to a Safe Home Act in 2018, which protects crime victims from eviction for calling emergency services.

It is uncanny that in the one state where the settlement was reached, a Black woman still died while desperately seeking help. Society needs to divorce itself from thinking that helping a Black woman is dangerous.

Studies show how this plays out in health care when Black patients are not believed when asserting they are in pain. And when Black women apply for governmental assistance and are likened instead to be the “welfare queen” trope.

While these changes are a step forward, we must keep pushing to ban crime-free ordinances everywhere – and for the justice system to stop harming Black women.

Leah Goodridge is the managing attorney for housing policy at Mobilization for Justice. Her testimony before the New York Advisory Committee on Black women and evictions contributed to the final report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @Leahfrombklyn

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Crime-free' laws hurt those who need help most: Abuse victims