The Choose Respect campaign is one of many fronts where SAFV is trying to change cultural norms around intimate partner violence. Since an infusion of state resources in 2011, the statistics have shown improvement. SAFV needs to raise only $79,000 to begin work on a $1.7 million renovation and expansion. (SAFV image)
Sitka’s domestic violence shelter has less than $80,000 to go in a fundraising campaign to renovate and expand the 60-year old facility.
Top staff from Sitkans Against Family Violence — or SAFV — met with the Sitka Chamber of Commerce this week (Wednesday 3-28-18) to describe the full range of services offered by the organization, and to outline plans for an expansion.
Director Michelle Mahoney said that SAFV in 2017 had provided over 3,745 bed nights for 117 women and 28 children — in a building that is bursting at the seams.
“We provide these services to the community of Sitka from a 60-year old building that’s in dire need of repair. A condition survey in 2015 identified over $510,000 just in repairs. In addition to that, we’ve been so full that we’ve had to create bedrooms out of our meeting space, and both living rooms, and the children’s playroom at one point.”
The shelter nominally has 24-beds, but Mahoney said many of those are bunk beds or cots, and the environment — though safe — is not ideal for privacy or for healing following domestic violence — which providers now more commonly refer to as “intimate partner violence.”
So far, SAFV has raised nearly all it needs to begin a $1.7 million expansion and renovation. The project will increase the capacity from 6 small bedrooms to 8 large ones, and add a second kitchen with an adjacent children’s play area. The 3 small bathrooms — which now can be shared by up to 12 people — will also be expanded.
Most of the funding has come through state grants, either directly or through the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, leaving only $79,000 dollars left to raise locally.
But the SAFV Shelter is much more than a building. Direct services supervisor Natalie Wojcik told the chamber that the organization has a pool of 10 advocates available 24/7 to assist with a range of services, like obtaining protective orders.
“Last year we had 1,753 individual advocacy services, and we had 239 non-residential program participants, which means that one out of every 31 people in Sitka receives services from us — and those are people who didn’t necessarily live there, but just received some sort of outside advocacy service.”
A huge component of SAFV’s mission is prevention, programs like Boys Run and Girls on the Run which teach healthy relationships, and a range of partnerships with other organizations and government, like the statewide “Choose Respect” campaign.
According to a survey by Alaska’s Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault nearly 59-percent of Alaskan women in 2010 had experienced some form of intimate partner violence.
Five years later, the same survey showed a 9-percent drop.
Mahoney told the Sitka chamber that these results were small, but promising. Changing systemic values does not happen overnight.
“So the prevention process is really subtle. And I like to think about it as seatbelts. Because when I was growing up we didn’t put seatbelts on. And I can’t remember the exact day when I started. Yes prevention works, but it’s a very subtle process. And clearly by those stats it is starting to happen. So it’s very, very positive.”
Although the SAFV shelter has been operating in Sitka for over three decades, some chamber members were clearly surprised by the statistics on intimate partner violence in the community, and the scope of the organization’s services.
One member reflected on the idea that half of all Alaskan women had been victimized. “If I had to guess, I would have said 10-percent,” he said. “And I’m a lifelong Sitkan. You really need to get the word out.”
