FavorHouse

Tracie Hodson is the executive director of FavorHouse of Northwest Florida, the certified domestic violence center that has served Escambia and Santa Rosa counties since 1980. She is known for an audacious and assiduous mindset, determined to serve survivors of domestic violence.

“One of my nicknames is Tenacious Tracie,” she said. “I’ve just always been driven, and I am not a status-quo-is-good-enough kind of gal.”

Hodson moved from Indiana to Pensacola in 2019 and joined Pensacola State College as WSRE-PBS Director of Development & Community Engagement, then joined FavorHouse in June 2022, where she can help make a real difference. 

“I’m good at it,” Hodson said of serving survivors, “but I also have a passion for it.” 

Hodson leans into support for her team, saying, “None of us are meant to do any of our work on our own. Photo courtesy of FavorHouse

For Hodson, who previously spent a decade growing a domestic violence center in northern Indiana with great success, the work is personal. “I am called to advocate for domestic violence victims. I’m called to make sure that they have a voice in our community.”

Hodson is a child of a domestic violence survivor but didn’t realize her mother had suffered until much later. “It was not my dad who was my mom’s abuser.” When recalling her early years, she said, “What I remember of my childhood up until their divorce was fairly idyllic.”

A survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2020 showed that at least 30% of domestic violence cases go unreported in the U.S. and 49% globally. Reasons for this range from fear of the abuser to financial dependence on the abuser. 

“When my mom’s story came out in my early 20s,” Hodson said, “and she told me about what had happened, she felt like she had no resources and no place to go.”

More than anything, Hodson wants people experiencing domestic violence in the Pensacola area to know they have somewhere to turn for assistance and compassion. She also wants the community to understand that the stakes are high. In the U.S., 20 people per minute experience physical abuse at the hands of an intimate partner, a total of approximately 10 million victims per year. According to the National Coalition of Domestic Violence, at least 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will experience an abusive relationship in their lifetimes. 

Photo courtesy of FavorHouse

“When you put those numbers just to our population,” Hodson said, “there are tens of thousands of people in this community that are suffering. Domestic violence impacts us all. It is statistically impossible for you not to know somebody who’s being impacted.”

Because Hodson sees domestic violence as a genuine public health threat in the Pensacola area, she’s identified two ambitious goals to mitigate its harm. The first is to establish a clear path to transitional housing for the women seeking help at FavorHouse. 

“If you’re staying in our shelter, you know it’s considered an emergency shelter. It’s a short-term stay,” Hodson said. “And you can’t really focus — none of us can — on the next steps if we don’t know where we’re going to lay our head down tonight and where our kids are going to sleep.”

The second goal is to add therapeutic licensed mental health counseling to the nontherapeutic counseling currently being offered at FavorHouse. 

“When you look at trauma, especially trauma created by intimate partner violence, that’s a special subset,” said Hodson.“To be able to have somebody who specializes in that trauma would be fantastic.”

Hodson has the vision but needs the capital to make it happen. Though financial funding is always a deterrent, Hodson’s ideal solution would be a self-contained village, of sorts, that featured individual cottages along with mental health and child care services. 

Her team is always seeking creative ways to raise money for FavorHouse or qualify for private and public grants. Currently, roughly 70% of the organization’s funding comes from federal, state or local grants and the remainder from private donors. 

Photo by Blake Jones

Hodson credits the success and growth of FavorHouse to the workers and volunteers who serve alongside her. Most of her team are from the Pensacola area and have a deep and invaluable knowledge of social service resources. Hodson relies on their individual talents and unique insights when she’s making the rounds at community events, conveying the big picture, courting donors and raising awareness of the FavorHouse mission.

“None of us are meant to do any of our work on our own,” Hodson said, praising the balance of strengths within her team. Collaborative leadership has always been a top priority for Hodson, adding, “To build that tribe, that team, that network, you’ve got to get to know people.” 

After the COVID-19 pandemic, community and connection are what prompted Hodson to join the Pensacola Women’s Alliance in 2021, claiming that, “it’s just women empowering women.”

Whether she’s promoting FavorHouse or networking with the Pensacola Women’s Alliance, Hodson’s goal is to connect, invest and uplift. 

“I believe that we’re all put here on the planet to make things a little bit better than what we found,” she said. “To do no harm.”