Shelter from the Storm loses critical funding

Update: Executive Director Angelina Coe reports since our story first aired, community members donated about $2,000 to Shelter from the Storm. The shelter is still looking for at least $148,000 in the next 85 days to continue funding critical services.

Domestic violence homicides are a reality in Riverside County, but the goal of one local agency is to prevent that from happening by giving victims “Shelter from the Storm.” Unfortunately, the non-profit that’s helped more than 210 people, including 142 children, in just the last year, is in serious financial trouble.

One Woman’s Story

“I got lucky that night to get out alive. All because my neighbors heard me scream. At 12 o’clock at night, my screams woke her up out of her sleep, and she called the cops,” says “Megan,” a young domestic violence victim who asked that her real name and some personal details be kept private.

“(The officer) got to me as I was being dragged down the stairs, and if he didn’t I don’t think I would have made it another hour.”

Now Megan is taking refuge with her three young children at Shelter from the Storm.

She says it’s not an exaggeration to say that Shelter from the Storm saved her life.

“No, not at all. Not an exaggeration. Shelter did save my life. It did, definitely. I knew that night I was going to die.”

A Refuge

Megan says she truly had nowhere else to go.

“Nine times out of 10 your family eventually cuts you off because you choose to stay in that relationship, and you have nobody but your abuser. So you will go back,” she explains.

“And that’s who we’re dealing with so often from domestic violence,” says Rachael Frost, a Master Investigator with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. “Victims who don’t have a yellow brick road path on the way out of a relationship.”

Megan’s story is one that Frost has heard many times before, as the program coordinator for the Sheriff’s Department Domestic Violence Management Team.

“If we don’t work together, if I as the police officer, just show up and arrest the suspect and put them in jail, that really doesn’t solve the overall problem. If we don’t work in a collaborative way, if I don’t work with Shelter from the Storm, then Shelter from the Storm doesn’t have the ability, the resources, doesn’t have the simple money, to be able to work with me, then we are not providing a solution to anyone here.,” Frost explains.

Desperate Times

Unfortunately, a huge loss in grant money is putting the shelter at risk at a time when services are needed most.

“The last few weeks with the summer months and the heat being as intense as it has been, there has been a huge increase in the number of families we’re serving,” says Executive Director Angelina Coe.

She describes the situation as simply, “dire.”

The loss of $150,000 in HUD funding on August 1, equates to nearly 10 percent of the shelter’s yearly costs.

Services Provided

Funding that provides, “a psychologist. We have parenting classes, we have domestic violence classes,” says Megan. She elaborates, “My kids go to school (here).”

“This is not the concept of welfare, generation after generation after generation, that’s not what this is,” says Frost. “This is an agency with their heart coming out and saying, “‘We’re going to help you get on your feet.'”

“There’s court, there’s legal issues, there’s emotional support, there’s job skills and training skills they don’t necessarily have because they weren’t allowed to work,” explains Coe.

The shelter, which is in an undisclosed location in the Coachella Valley, costs $1.6 million a year to run. It was incorporated in 1988, and a 70 bed shelter opened in September of 1993.

Feeding and housing a woman and two children for an average 25 day stay costs roughly $3,300, and the HUD cuts will mean hard choices.

Coe says Shelter from the Storm needs a six-figure cash infusion in the next 90 days.

“It always is a struggle (for funding),” says Coe. “But with the impending loss of $150,000 it’s more stressful. We are already short-staffed as it is. So we cannot afford to lose any funding to cover people. Because without the staff we can’t provide the services.”

Consequences of Abuse

“The first three days after leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous,” says Coe. “And if (a victim does) go back to him within that 72 hour period, it most likely ends in a homicide. And that’s the reality that we’re trying to prevent. And we can’t accept everyone but we definitely are helping the few that do come to us. And even if we can change one life and one family. One Megan, we’ve done a lot.”

“There’s a saying in the laundry rooms, every time I go to do laundry, I look at it,” says Megan. “It’s a picture of a casket with flowers on it. It says, ‘she was beaten over 150 times, but she only got flowers once.’ And that one, just, every time I look at it, it reminds me that I wouldn’t be here. I could be that woman in that casket.”

But now Megan says, she feels like her life is beginning.

“I’m free. That’s what I feel like. Like I’m free.”

How to Help

To donate to Shelter from the Storm, click here, or call (760) 674-0400.

How to receive help

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, click here or call (760) 328-SAFE (7233)