Mental health services. Domestic violence shelters. A rape
crisis hotline. Local nonprofit Community Solutions gives people
who need help a place to turn
One of the women in the small office was crying. But by the time she got up from her chair to leave, her tears were gone. She was armed with both the knowledge that someone cares for her and pamphlets that explained her options.
This woman, a victim of domestic violence, turned to the Hollister branch of Community Solutions when she wasn’t sure where else to go. She found a haven in the nonprofit’s services and the encouragement of Debbie Ruiz, a safety and support services case manager.
Community Solutions started in 1972 as a teen drop-in center in Morgan Hill with the primary goal of keeping kids out of gangs. Today, it is a government-funded nonprofit offering a plethora of services that more than 12,000 people used last year alone. The organization has branches in Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Hollister. Today, more than 65 percent of Community Solutions’ clients are younger than 18.
“We want people to have an opportunity to enhance their lives, and if Community Solutions can do that, then what a great gift,” said Marianne Marafino, a site and program director at the organization’s Gilroy facility. “When people call us, our job is not to tell a person what to do. We provide options for people, we tell them what we can do to assist them and what other resources in the community are available to them. We validate their feelings, we empathize and we support callers in any way we can.”
Along with providing assistance such as mental health services, domestic violence shelters and a rape crisis hotline, Community Solutions maintains a log of other community resources people can turn to, such as contacts for St. Joseph’s Family Center, which can provide shelter for the homeless, and the Mexican American Community Service Agency, which can provide tutoring services, Marafino said.
“People may have to go to three different agencies to either find the service they need or to get all the different services they need, but Community Solutions is one place where they can find anything,” said Cecilia Clark the organization’s development and communications manager. “It’s advantageous for our clients to come here. They can get all their services here or we can tell them exactly where they need to go.”
Though the agency and its funding are set up for families and youth, many single adults often use the crisis hotline and receive help, Marafino said. They often call for things such as needing shelter or they have been incarcerated and need help getting back into their community, and though Community Solutions doesn’t receive funding for this sort of service, they will help anyway.
Other people using Community Solutions include parents who need help managing their disruptive or truant teenagers, foster children who need to learn life skills to help them live a stable life once they turn 18 and low-income families who need a safe after-school program for their children or tutoring assistance. Community Solutions also has the only shelter for battered women and children in the south county and Hollister area that has a confidential address.
The Hollister branch of Community Solutions most often deals with sexual assault and domestic violence issues, Ruiz said. In Gilroy, the most prevalent issues are truant elementary school-aged children, violence and bullying, Marafino said. At the Morgan Hill branch, most services provided involve mental health programs, said Lisa DeSilva director of development for the organization.
People who turn to Community Solutions for help don’t fit any stereotypes, Ruiz said. They range from migrant field workers to prominent business people in the community, but she said they have one thing in common: They’re looking for comfort and options.
“They feel alone and very ashamed, and it’s so hard for them to come in here,” she said. “But we’re here to help you get back in control and move forward. We listen and we guide, we raise awareness and we offer support, 24 hours a day.”
Despite the vast range of services the organization provides, there are still services Marafino said she wished weren’t as limited. Though adolescent drug and alcohol use prevention and education is a well-developed serivce, Marafino said she would like better intervention services for adolescents who are already using. She also said that teen domestic violence, where teenagers who are in romantic relationships are abused by their significant others, is a rising problem that has not been addressed as well as it could be in terms of services provided. At the same time, Marafino said she is heartened by the fact that self-mutilation, an overwhelming issue last year, has declined significantly this year.
“Even after 23 years (of working with Community Solutions), my heart still gets broken by the sheer magnitude of struggles and stress some families in our community face every day that can be invisible to everyone else,” DeSilva said. “But I’m inspired by these people that face these issues, and especially by the kids that you can’t even imagine what they’re facing. But they’re so resilient, and they cope, and it’s so inspiring to see them really rise up.”
Here to Help
Services of Community Solutions include:
– Mental health services
– Substance abuse programs
– Domestic violence shelter and support
– Home-based education and support for families
– Women’s self-defense classes
The Digits
Hollister 24-hour hotline:
(831) 637-1094
Gilroy and Morgan Hill 24-hour hotline:
(408) 683-4118
