YWCA Clark County is celebrating 50 years of its SafeChoice Program, which provides resources including shelter, transitional housing and legal services for those who have faced domestic violence. However, the program is projected to have a $200,000 deficit in 2025.
The program began in 1974 when a group of women who called themselves the “Esther Short Park Lunch Bunch” decided battered women and children needed a safe place to stay when they left their abusers, said Chandra Chase, vice president of communications and marketing.
The women used their own money to rent an apartment and run the SafeChoice Program out of it, Chase said.
“Because of their early leadership, countless numbers of women and children have found a safe haven,” Chase said.
Over the years, YWCA added legal advocacy, peer counseling, support groups and specialized services. After a renovation in 2023, the shelter has 14 rooms for adults and children fleeing domestic violence. It is the only place in Clark County offering shelter specifically for domestic violence survivors.
In 2022, the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund gave YWCA Clark County $3 million in seed money to support the kickoff of an expansion of the SafeChoice Program’s services.
Expansion of the domestic violence shelter and its programs is expected to cost $5 million, so YWCA needs help from government contracts, corporate backing and community contributions to fill the gap.
The expansion has enabled the program to increase services for youth staying in the shelter.
“We don’t currently receive any other dedicated youth and children funding into our domestic violence program, and so this project … has been very critical to being able to focus on children and youth and giving them support they need,” said Brittini Lasseigne, CEO of YWCA Clark County.
Legal services for domestic violence survivors have also expanded. Clark County Volunteer Lawyers helps people in the SafeChoice Program with protection orders, family law and evictions.
Since the program began eviction prevention services this spring, 77 people have received rental payment assistance, Chase said.
Transitional housing and rapid rehousing has also been a major focus since the expansion, with 237 people receiving housing services since 2020.
“The average stay in our shelter is three months. So what are people doing after that?” Lasseigne said. “(Housing) participants can come in and stay for a year, and we pay their rent, and they’re able to work on finding stability during that year.”
Prevention programming in middle and high schools has increased since the expansion, Lasseigne said. YWCA holds multiweek workshops on healthy relationships, boundaries and consent, she said.
“We like want to be able to be in the space where our crisis service is no longer needed. And so to do that, it’s really focusing on our prevention work and how we can educate future generations,” Lasseigne said.
But YWCA Clark County needs help from the community maintaining these services in 2025, she said. People can donate through the nonprofit’s Adopt-A-Room fundraiser to help fill that gap by the end of the fiscal year in June.
The deficit comes in the midst of other funding challenges for domestic violence services.
The federal Victims of Crime Act directs money from criminal fines to domestic violence programs. Washington anticipates a 51.5 percent reduction in that funding in the next fiscal year.
Washington tried to keep its programs afloat by allocating one-time funding of $41.3 million for crime victim services and $750,000 for emergency domestic violence shelters. The city of Vancouver also allocated almost $1 million for domestic violence shelters and housing in July.
However, both local and state funding will end by June 30. If the funding isn’t renewed, it may force some domestic violence programs to shut down or cut back on services.
Although Lasseigne said none of the 14 shelter rooms are in jeopardy of closing if YWCA Clark County doesn’t raise the $200,000, survivors may receive fewer services.
“It’s really the first opportunity that we’ve had where community can have that kind of support in our shelter and transitional housing,” Lasseigne said.
