The future of the city-run Safe Havens domestic-violence visitation and exchange facility could be in jeopardy next year unless additional funds are found.
“For 2009, Safe Havens is safe,” said Katherin Johnson, city housing and human services manager for the downtown Kent facility, in a phone interview Feb. 12. “The challenge is 2010. We don’t know how long it will last.”
Safe Havens began life four years ago as a safe center for children exposed to domestic violence to visit with their non-custodial parent. The facility also provides safety for the custodial spouse who drops off the children for the visit.
Most families are referred to Safe Havens by judges after one partner receives a protection order against the other.
King County officials cut funding for Safe Havens from $75,000 to $10,000 for 2009 because of county-budget shortfalls. No county funding is expected in 2010.
“I was very surprised to get that,” Johnson said of the $10,000 awarded by the King County Council.
City officials are lobbying the Legislature this session for $200,000 in state funding for the next two years. Federal and state grant money already awarded will help Safe Havens get through 2009.
With the state facing budget deficits as well, it remains uncertain how much the state will be willing to give Safe Havens over the next two years.
“We expect it be sometime in March before we know,” Johnson said.
If the city fails to get additional state help, city officials hope to find a nonprofit group to operate the facility.
Safe Havens opened in January 2005 in Kent as one of four demonstration sites in the nation for supervised visitations and exchanges. A grant from the U.S. Department of Justice funded the program for the first few years. Now funds from the state, county and the city keep the program going.
The city provides $100,000 a year to Safe Havens through the Human Services Commission, which awards money each year to various agencies from the Kent Food Bank to Catholic Community Services.
City officials plan to form a task force in March to explore funding options for Safe Havens.
“We need some sort of nonprofit arm to seek funding from other sources,” Johnson said. “We’ll look at all avenues. Maybe it will become its own nonprofit. We won’t know more until we form the task force.”
The task force is expected to include representatives from the city, the county court system, the state domestic violence program, a private domestic violence agency and King County.
Tracee Parker, project coordinator, is the only full-time employee at Safe Havens. The facility also employs three part-time employees and two temporary staff members.
City officials want the state to help support Safe Havens because the entity assists residents throughout the Puget Sound area.
Only 20 percent of those who use Safe Havens are Kent residents. Others come from as far south as Olympia and as far north as Snohomish County.
“We are the only visitation center focused on domestic violence and with a sliding-fee scale,” Johnson said.
Safe Havens is set up to allow the parent with the protection order against them, mostly visiting fathers, to show up at the facility 30 minutes before their child or children are to arrive. The building has separate, secured entrances for each parent.
The mother brings the children to the center for the one-hour visit once per week. The mother then leaves to return later or can stay in a waiting area. When the visit ends, the father must wait 15 minutes after the children leave before he can leave.
Since the facility opened, Safe Havens has not seen any domestic-violence in its clientele.
“The fatality rate (of domestic-violence victims) increases after a victim leaves (the partner),” Johnson said. “That’s the reason it’s so critical to provide safety to the victim.”
Johnson said two recent domestic-violence murders in the Puget Sound area were victims referred to Safe Havens, but they had not yet made contact with the facility to set up visits.
“We wonder if we could have saved their life,” Johnson said. “That tells the story of the people who use this facility. They are people in very dangerous situations.”
For more information about Safe Havens, go to www.ci.kent.wa.us/humanservices or call the city human services division at 253-856-5070.
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