Pandemic drives metro KC domestic violence shelters to creative, but costly solutions
Jane Doe sat in her Kansas City metro area home late on a summer night watching the hours tick by as she waited for her husband to come home. When he did — intoxicated, again — fear took over. Fear for her life, and fear for her granddaughter’s.
That night she reached a breaking point. Doe thought of her son who’d been shot and killed by his partner in an act of domestic violence just a year earlier. Doe’s husband, who had been addicted to drugs for decades, abused her throughout their marriage. But where could she turn?
A global pandemic raged on just outside her door, putting traditional destinations for help in a dire state. But the threat inside was too much.
“That’s when I said I can’t do it anymore,” Doe recalled. “Enough is enough.”
Doe, like a growing number of domestic violence survivors across the Kansas City metro area, sought help from domestic violence shelters. They led her to a hotel.
Area domestic violence shelters, having already reached their reduced capacity because of the coronavirus pandemic, are footing the bill for hotels. But these out of pocket expenses aren’t sustainable, shelter leaders say, as they balance the immediate safety of victims with the financial longevity of their shelters.
Doe, a woman in her 50s, is staying at a hotel with her granddaughter thanks to Friends of Yates, which runs the only domestic violence shelter in Kansas City, Kansas. She asked to remain anonymous for her safety.
“I’d been wanting to leave, but I didn’t,” she said of living with her husband. “I just stayed, thinking and hoping that it would get better. But it wasn’t.”
Collectively, the six shelters for survivors across the Kansas City metro typically have just under 400 beds. But now they’re running at less than half that.
“The biggest challenge for shelters is that pre-COVID, we were always full to begin with,” said Courtney Thomas, president and CEO of Newhouse, the oldest domestic violence shelter in Kansas City. “Domestic violence doesn’t take a break, despite a pandemic, and neither do we.”
According to the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, 8,261 people received domestic violence services in the Kansas City region last year. More than 70% were women.
There were more than 29,000 calls to the hotline in 2019. And shelters provided almost 98,200 nights of emergency shelter and nearly 3,300 nights of transitional housing to survivors last year.
This year, the situation is even more dire for victims living with their abusers. A loss of jobs, homes and freedom that many people had before the pandemic have increased stress.
“It creates kind of a toxic recipe for a higher propensity of violence in the home,” Thomas said.
In Wyandotte County alone, domestic violence homicides have nearly tripled this March through October compared to March through October last year, said Arica Roland, Director of Operations with Friends of Yates.
As the pandemic grinds on with no clear end in sight, those leading domestic violence shelters across the metro worry the recent increase in calls for help, coupled with the short financial rope they cling to, could lead to cuts in resources.
Police calls up, shelter capacity down
When a stay at home order went into place in the spring, Jenna Neumann noticed that Cass County’s only domestic violence shelter, the one she oversees, wasn’t getting nearly as many calls for help as usual.
“We all know that while our hotline isn’t ringing, victims are still being abused. It was very alarming to us,” said Neumann, the executive director of Hope Haven in Harrisonville. Experts have said that victims have less opportunity to call for help when stuck at home with their abuser.
But calls are up again.
Calls reporting domestic violence to police are up 30% since the onset of the pandemic, Thomas said, noting that law enforcement are often only called in the most severe cases.
The domestic violence hotline, which is operated by six shelters in the metro area, has experienced an increase in calls in which someone’s life is in danger.
“We are seeing an elevation in lethality cases, and then when we’re at capacity and can’t bring anyone in, we have had to get creative with alternative forms of housing,” Thomas said.
While hotels provide safety for survivors in immediate danger, they also come with large bills the shelters hadn’t planned for when budgeting for the year.
Since the pandemic began, Newhouse was reduced from 88 beds to only one individual or family per each of its 24 rooms. They recently had three survivors in hotels. One had been there for three weeks.
Across the state line, Roland said that because of COVID-19, they limited their on-site capacity from 38 beds to 10.
As of this week, Friends of Yates was housing roughly 50 survivors across the shelter and the hotel, Roland said.
“It’s unknown how long we’re going to have to operate like this with COVID and the numbers starting to increase again, how long we’re going to have to sustain in using the hotels to house survivors,” she said of Friends of Yates, which is primarily funded by grants and donations.
Funding programs for survivors
As survivors branch out to hotels, shelter staff are forced to do the same in order to bring services like safety planning, housing plans and medical support to the victims, Roland said.
Thomas, in Kansas City, said it’s the same at Newhouse where the pandemic is leaving them with little money to expand their team, already stretched thin caring for survivors both inside and outside the shelter’s walls.
Alexis, 25, who is in the process of transitioning and asked to go by her first name to maintain safety, found Newhouse after going between both homeless and domestic violence shelters since they were 16. Alexis uses the pronouns they/them/her.
“Six months ago I was in fight or flight mode trying to figure out where I was going to sleep night to night knowing that I had to get out of an abusive situation, but now knowing exactly where I was going to go or how that was going to look for me,” said Alexis, who survived emotional and physical domestic abuse.
Now Alexis wakes up in her own bed, goes on jogs, makes meals and has therapy sessions. Alexis is even working an apprenticeship in garment production and pattern-making after Newhouse staff encouraged her to pursue her dream of designing and making clothes.
“I definitely walked out of this shelter a changed person,” said Alexis, who moved into her own apartment with the help of Newhouse a couple months ago
But the shelter staff still checks in to see how Alexis is doing.
“Sometimes when you’re in certain situations it can kind of feel like it’s just you against the world,” Alexis said. “Now for the first time in a really long time I feel supported as a person.”
The future of shelters
In September, Newhouse leadership launched an SOS, a “Support Our Shelter” campaign.
“We need the community to realize that stopping right now to make a small contribution truly has the power to keep our doors open and save the life of an adult or child,” Thomas said in the news release last month.
She has been asking herself what the future of the nonprofit social services sector will look like as she constantly measures and monitors funds.
Despite emergency relief funding given to Newhouse at the onset of the pandemic, the shelter is still in “a very tight spot,” Thomas said, adding that the longevity of the organization is at stake.
If the additional funding doesn’t come in, they may have to significantly cut services. A worst case scenario would mean shuttering their doors. If that were to happen, Thomas said, the other shelters likely wouldn’t be in a position to absorb the additional need.
Neumann, who heads the Cass County shelter, is keenly aware of the costliness of just keeping masks and disinfectants restocked. But a positive COVID-19 test would likely come with a much larger price tag.
“Just to know that we’re one outbreak away from a struggle or a situation that’s not in our favor, I mean it keeps me up at night,” Neumann said.
Even though the shelter has been operating at 50% since the onset of the pandemic, it still had bed space until August. Since then, each of the nine rooms has been filled. Earlier this week, a woman in one room was replaced by another survivor within a matter of hours.
Neumann said many rural shelter directors are telling the same story.
Before the pandemic, people transitioned out of the shelter and into permanent housing more quickly.
“It’s hard to watch people who should be successful very quickly, struggle for four months, five months,” Neumann said. “We have people in the shelter longer than we’ve ever had right now.”
She said stability is paramount for survivors, and permanent housing is a large piece of that. But it’s trickier during a pandemic.
Many survivors looking for work are fearful of taking jobs which might expose them to more people and put them at higher risk of catching COVID-19, Neumann said.
Or, like Doe, the survivor in Kansas City, Kansas, they have been turned down when looking for a place to rent.
‘I know I’m safe’
When she learned she’d be staying in a hotel, Doe was relieved. Had they told her the shelter was too full, with no alternative options, Doe said she probably would have been forced to go back to her abuser.
Doe has custody of her granddaughter, the child of her son who was killed. The young girl seems happier at the hotel. She sleeps better now. The nerves have subsided. And Doe said she’s doing much better herself.
“I’m better because I know I’m safe. I know they’re safe,” she said.
The hotel gives them breakfast in the morning, and the shelter brings them lunch and dinner. Each day, someone from the shelter comes to check in on her and talk about future goals.
Doe wants to get a home where she can reunite with her other grandchildren.
There have been roadblocks though. A landlord recently told her that he didn’t want to rent to someone during the eviction moratorium.
Despite the challenges and the upheaval, Doe is certain in her decision. She recalled an unexplainable feeling that came over her when she pulled into the hotel parking lot that first day.
“No one deserves to be abused, and if you can take that step and leave, you’ve done a wonderful thing for yourself,” she said. “It’s hard to leave, but you can do it.”
Resources
The community can support the shelters by giving monetary or physical donations:
- Community members can make monetary donations online to Newhouse’s COVID-19 emergency fund.
Arica Roland said Friends of Yates is in need of cleaning supplies, personal hygiene kits, underwear, towels and diapers. Monetary donations can also be sent to P.O. Box 17-2122 in Kansas City, KS 66117, or through the organization’s website.
Neumann said Hope Haven is looking for donated personal hygiene items, masks and cleaning supplies. They also accept monetary donations online.
Monetary donations to Rose Brooks Center can be made online or by emailing donations@rosebrooks.org.
Hope House is in urgent need of cleaning supplies. Call 816-604-7578 for more information on the donation process. Monetary donations can also be made online.
Information on financial gifts and in-kind donations to Safehome can be found online.
If you or a loved one are in need of help these resources are available. You do not need to have an emergency to call the crisis hotlines.
- Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault: Crisis hotline, 816-531-0233 or 913-642-0233
- Safehome: 24 hour hotline, 913-262-2868
- Kansas City Anti Violence Project: Crisis hotline, available by text, call or email, 816-348-3665 or 913-802-4014 or info@kcavp.org
- Rose Brooks Center: Crisis hotline, 816-861-6100
- Hope House: Crisis hotline, 816-461-4673
- Newhouse: Crisis hotline, 816-471-5800
- Synergy Services: Crisis hotline, 816-321-7050 or 800-491-1114
Any of the six Kansas City area metro shelters can be reached at 816-468-5463.
If you are outside the Kansas City area the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233.
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
