The Governor’s last-minute decision to cut all funding for the
state’s domestic violence program means the county’s only four
shelters will lose about $800,000, further reducing services for
battered women and their children at a time when demand is soaring
and private donations are not, representatives said.
The Governor’s last-minute decision to cut all funding for the state’s domestic violence program means the county’s only four shelters will lose about $800,000, further reducing services for battered women and their children at a time when demand is soaring and private donations are not, representatives said.
The closest nonprofit emergency shelter, legal counseling service and 24/7 crisis hotline operator is Morgan Hill-based Community Solutions, which employs more than 85 employees in Gilroy, Hollister and Morgan Hill. Despite the $200,000 hit coming her way, President and CEO Erin O’Brien vowed to keep the doors open at the organization’s confidential shelter, which housed about 150 women and children in 2008.
O’Brien and leaders of the county’s other three shelters in San Jose and Sunnyvale were expecting $40,000 hits each, she said, but to help close the state’s $26 billion deficit, Gov. Schwarzenegger cut all $20.4 million earmarked for the state’s 94 shelters and centers when the budget came to his desk.
The shelters are still reeling from the hews.
“We are absolutely committed to keeping our shelter open, but how we do that, I don’t know,” said O’Brien, who oversees a $10.5 million budget. “A lot of people are working on a lot of fixes, but thinking about where these women are going to go (if the shelter closes), that’s what keeps me up at night. Having to decide whether to leave or sleep on the street – that’s not a choice anyone should have to make in a civilized society.”
Signaling the ongoing need to aid victims of domestic violence, police arrested 40-year-old Phillip Cannizzaro, of Morgan Hill, Sunday night for “punching and kicking” his girlfriend at a residence on Claremont Drive, causing facial injuries that required medical attention, police said. That represents one of the 5,147 cases the Santa Clara County District Attorney Office handled last year year.
Tamara Chukes gave her first-hand testimony in front of O’Brien and about 60 others gathered on the front lawn of a San Jose home this morning for a press conference to decry the governor’s cuts. The mother of four suffered through seven years of domestic violence before seeking help at Community Solutions’ La Isla Pacifica shelter two years ago, she said. Since seeking help, Chukes enrolled in college, and she beamed with confidence Wednesday as she stressed the importance of nonprofit services.
“Without La Isla Pacifica, the chances are I would not have survived,” Chukes said. “I stand here as a survivor.”
Listening under the morning sun were State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco, San Mateo), State Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr and San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis. They joined domestic violence victims, prevention advocates, law enforcement officers, and representatives from the county’s three other shelter providers and legal advocates: San Jose-based Asian Americans for Community Involvement, San Jose-based Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence and Sunnyvale-based Support Network for Battered Women.
The house everyone stood in front of sat vacant with a for sale in the lawn, but Kathleen Krenek, executive director Next Door Solutions, explained the poignant backdrop: The home looked like any other seemingly quiet, peaceful house police respond to on domestic violence calls.
“Our community and people like Tamara deserve the services they have come to expect,” Krenek said in front of a small crowd of reporters.
Carr agreed and said shelters provide services at the most valuable time. Davis described detectives working side by side with shelter employees, streamlining the legal and criminal processes that often seem overwhelming to a terrified victim who is alone.
“This cut is a public safety cut,” Davis said. “We’re talking about violence here.”
To give the shelters hope, Leland introduced legislation to allocate $16.3 million from the state’s victims compensation fund to the Domestic Violence Program. While that money would help, O’Brien worried about logistics given the strings that come attached with public funds and how donors may react to all these variables in the coming weeks.
Every public dime the nonprofit receives has to fund certain projects that involve certain employees. So, when funding for, say, helping foster kids learn independence skills runs dry, money for another particular program that pays another employees’ particular wages cannot be shifted around, O’Brien said. It’s an accounting maze that means if philanthropists shift their donations from one area to the shelter, then Community Solutions will have another budgetary riddle to solve.
Domestic violence by the numbers
795 women and children found emergency shelter at the county’s four domestic violence shelters in 2008
– 124 at the Asian Women’s Home in San Jose
– 149 at Community Solutions in South Santa Clara County
– 275 at Next Door Solutions in San Jose
– 247 at Support Network of Battered Women in Sunnyvale
1,028 were turned away because the shelters were full
21,357 calls were made to the four domestic violence hot lines
Source: Domestic Violence Advocacy Consortium
Contact information
To contact Community Solutions, visit www.CommunitySolutions.org or call 842-7138. Victims can call the 24-hour hot line at 1-(877)-END-SADV, or 1-(877)-363-7238.
