Facing overwhelming need, local domestic violence shelters prepare to expand

Driven by a surge in homicides involving women in abusive relationships and a soaring number of victims seeking shelter, local agencies are working to expand capacity for women who are victims of domestic violence.

“I can’t imagine a more difficult phone conversation to have than with a woman who’s just been abused and needs a place to go and for us to say … we don’t have room,” said Michael Burrus, executive director of Catholic Charities, which operates Harbor House, a shelter for women who are victims of domestic violence.

Six of Wichita’s homicides so far in 2015 have been connected to domestic violence, police say. That compares with three all of last year, according to data provided by police officials.

Shelter officials say the violence endured by victims is increasing – and the sheer numbers are, too: Harbor House has had to turn away more than 100 requests a month due to a lack of space, including 178 in August, program director Joyce Mahoney said.

But Harbor House officials say they will be able to help many more domestic violence victims beginning later this month.

‘A huge step’

The Sisters of St. Joseph convent in southeast Wichita enters a new chapter in its 100-year history on Oct. 19 when it begins accepting referrals from Harbor House and Anthony Family Shelter, which provides assistance for homeless families.

The convent, rechristened The Mount, will have 14 rooms available for use in this first stage. Another 12 are slated to be available in January and an additional 12 about three months after that, Catholic Charities officials said.

Once new quarters for the nuns now living in the convent are completed in 2018, another 20 rooms will become available.

Officials are confident the opening of the Mount will mean they have to turn away far fewer victims due to a lack of space.

“We’ll still have those conversations,” Burrus said. “What we’re doing here, while it’s significant and it’s substantial, it’s not going to come anywhere close to taking care of the whole problem. But it’s a huge step.”

Harbor House has 40 rooms for victims of domestic violence, and Burrus said discussions about expanding that structure have been put on hold as efforts focused on the Mount.

Expanding space

The YWCA Women’s Crisis Center has also seen an increase in need, officials there have said. The 22-bed shelter had to turn away 550 women and children because of a lack of space in 2013. Last year, that number grew to 680.

The agency is looking at a number of ways to increase short- and long-term shelter capacity, YWCA executive director Angela Lampe said.

“Part of that is recognizing that in the near future, we’re going to have to look at expanding our shelter space to at least double,” Lampe said. “In the meantime, we’ve been taking other steps to meet the need.”

The agency has found “small pools of funding” to pay for more hotel stays – “a night or two,” Lampe said – for victims of domestic violence when no space is available at the agency’s shelter.

“We can at least provide immediate safety for that individual,” Lampe said.

But the agency’s help extends beyond a hotel room for those victims, she said. The crisis center works to connect the women with services they need.

“Just because we can’t put them in a bed in our emergency shelter doesn’t mean we can’t provide service,” Lampe said.

The center’s board of directors is talking about adding rollaway beds in some rooms and re-evaluating other space as well, she said. That includes staff work space, which may be reconfigured to make room for more beds.

The long-term solution is two-fold, she said. Along with at least doubling the size of the emergency shelter, the center needs to greatly expand prevention activities.

Studies have shown that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are victims of domestic violence, officials have said. Domestic violence crosses all demographic categories and income levels.

“How can we help to bring those numbers down?” Lampe said.

That effort has to include teaching boys and girls at young ages about what’s acceptable – and what isn’t – in social interactions and healthy relationships, she said. But it can’t stop there.

The prevention programs also need to look at cultural norms in our society, Lampe said.

“Abuse can take on so many forms,” she said. “Physical (abuse) is just one of those pieces.

“A lot of times individuals will say the verbal or emotional abuse is more difficult to heal from,” she said. “Those kinds of scars are longer-lasting than the bruises or broken bones.”

Healing scars

Those invisible scars are part of why rooms at Harbor House and the Mount are tastefully decorated, Catholic Charities officials said.

Harbor House has a serenity garden, for example, and residents of the Mount will be able to walk the grounds or spend time in the small chapel where the nuns have celebrated Mass for decades.

Like Harbor House, the Mount will serve survivors regardless of their faith backgrounds – or even if they don’t believe in God at all – and they will not be required to attend Mass or any other religious activity, officials said.

“The men, women and children that we serve have a lot of healing to do,” Mahoney said.

That healing can begin when residents feel safe and comfortable where they’re staying, she said.

“We also try to make them as much like home by celebrating the holidays, by having birthday parties,” said Mahoney, who added that a 5-year-old boy who was staying at Harbor House had his first-ever birthday party the other day.

Mount staff won’t be caretakers, officials said. Residents will be provided breakfast, but they will be expected to take care of their own midday and evening meals. Each room has its own small refrigerator and pantry so residents can store food.

“There’s a lot of healing in being able to cook a meal and sit down together to eat it,” said Kate McPheeters, Catholic Charities’ deputy director for family stabilization.

A wide range of services will be available to people staying at the Mount, from financial literacy to therapeutic counseling to healthy relationship development – “anything that helps them stabilize,” McPheeters said.

Security measures

The locations of emergency shelters and safe houses are always carefully guarded to protect domestic violence survivors from their attackers. But the Mount doesn’t have the advantage of anonymity, Mahoney said.

“We’re going to be careful who we send over there,” she said.

Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis and could be determined by such factors as whether the abuser has left town or is in jail, she said.

“The main thing we’ll judge on is whether she feels safe over there,” Mahoney said.

While no one will be sent there if they’re still considered to be in danger, Mahoney said, several security measures will be in place.

The grounds will be monitored around the clock with video surveillance and on-site security guards, said Jen McGill, housing services program director for Catholic Charities, whose office will be at the Mount. People will have to sign in and sign out.

People staying at the Mount will be given a personal entry code they must punch into a keypad to enter the building or open the gate to the grounds after 9 p.m. When they leave the Mount for good, their personal entry codes will be erased.

Nuns involved, too

Eventually, the Mount will accept referrals from outside agencies as well as homeless men. But for now, the tenants will be transitioning from the Anthony Family Shelter and Harbor House.

Survivors sent to the Mount could stay for as long as three months, depending on how long it takes for them to find a place to live and address obstacles such as transportation or child care, officials say. Their status will be reviewed each 30 days to monitor progress.

“It could be they’re here a week and a half, but it’s still freed up a week and a half in the shelter,” McPheeters said.

“We know from running shelters for 30 years now that what happens is they stabilize fairly quickly in most cases, but then they stay in the emergency shelter because they don’t have housing. Then we can’t take everybody else that’s in crisis situations because we don’t have the room.”

The Mount is “the next step” that gives survivors a place to stay while they’re putting the pieces in place to succeed as they move forward, she said.

People staying at the Mount may well have some special visitors on a regular basis: the nuns still living at the convent.

“They’re very excited to share their space and their ministry with us,” McPheeters said. “We’re getting lots of offers to help.

“We don’t know how that will look. We just know they’ll be involved.”

Even if it’s little more than passing through to say hello or lend a caring ear, McPheeters said, the nuns will be welcome because their presence brings something special to the setting:

“Peace.”

This story was originally published October 10, 2015 at 4:57 PM with the headline "Facing overwhelming need, local domestic violence shelters prepare to expand."