Does She Feel Safer? A Conversation with SafeNest's Liz Ortenburger

For decades, the domestic violence movement has operated on a familiar script: abuser is bad, survivor should leave, and the system's job is to punish after the fact. Liz Ortenburger, CEO of SafeNest — Nevada's largest domestic and sexual violence nonprofit, serving Clark County since 1977 — has spent the last ten years challenging that script from the inside.

In this conversation, Liz walks us through the real, layered reasons abuse gets passed down through generations, and why SafeNest made the controversial decision to work directly with abusers alongside survivors. We talk about the DALE lethality assessment and the 4,300 people SafeNest had to turn away from shelter last year alone.

We talk about "hope planning" — Liz's data-driven framework for helping at-risk kids see a future that doesn't repeat their past. And we talk candidly about where thirty years of well-intentioned policy — mandatory arrest, no-drop prosecution, VAWA — has and hasn't delivered for the people it was built to protect.

Liz's core question threads through all of it: not "did the system punish him," but "does she feel safer." It's a reframe that has real implications for how we fund, measure, and talk about this work going forward.

In this episode:

• Why abuse is often a generational, learned pattern — and what breaking that cycle actually requires
• The DALE lethality assessment and the resource gap in domestic violence shelters
• SafeNest's "hope planning" model and Camp HOPE
• The history and unintended consequences of mandatory arrest and no-drop prosecution
• Why funding for abuser intervention programs is controversial — and why Liz thinks it shouldn't be
• What VAWA does and doesn't fund, and what's at stake in its 2027 reauthorization
• What listeners can actually do — for survivors, for policy, and in their own communities

You can contact SafeNest, even if you aren't a resident of Nevada at:

• safenest.org
• Hotline: 702-646-4981

If you are in a situation where you don't feel safe, you can also reach out to:

• The National Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) | Text START to 88788 | Live chat and 24/7 AI-assisted chat at thehotline.org — available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, offering free, confidential support with crisis intervention, safety planning, and referrals in more than 200 languages.
  • This includes a quick exit option for browsers, and suggests clearing your browser history after visiting, with instructions on how to do just that.
• National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN) — 1-800-656-4673
• National Human Trafficking Hotline — 1-800-373-7888
• StrongHearts Native Helpline (for American Indian and Alaska Native survivors) — 1-844-762-8483 | Live chat and text support, offering culturally appropriate services NNEDV
• Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women — 1-888-7HELPLINE (743-5754)
• National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline — 866-331-9474 | TTY 866-331-8453 — for young people experiencing abuse or curious about healthy relationships NNEDV
• The Deaf Hotline — Video phone: 855-812-1001

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

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