SURVIVORS OF ABUSE CAN NOW FIND SHELTER IN MINUTES

In December, a woman hiding in a motel room after fleeing her violent partner called a victim advocate in the District Attorney’s Office and explained through tears that she had been strangled and beaten and that her partner had taken her cell phone. She was terrified he would find her and kill her. She only had enough money to pay for one night at a motel and then she would be homeless. Almost immediately, the victim advocate found a safe shelter for the woman, using San Diego County’s first live shelter bed locator system — the SoCal Safe Shelter Collaborative.

Since its launch last October, the Safe Shelter Collaborative has been successfully helping survivors of abuse find safe shelter in minutes, rather than days, with more than 150 survivors served through the program in its first year. Even before the pandemic, there weren’t enough emergency beds to meet the needs of this vulnerable population and the pandemic added greater strain to shelters, with reduced capacity to prevent the spread of the virus. That’s when the San Diego County Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Advisory Council and the San Diego Domestic Violence Council joined forces with Caravan Studios, a division of TechSoup, to bring the Safe Shelter Collaborative program to Southern California.

Safe shelters are in confidential locations, with wraparound services for survivors fleeing dangerous abusive and exploitative relationships. Often, survivors have children in tow, heightening the need for quality, trauma-focused services. When someone is ready and able to leave an abusive relationship, we have the responsibility as a community to ensure their families can find a safe place to stay.

There are now 32 organizations and counting signed onto the program. There are nine shelters and over 300 beds for survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual assault. Staff can log in to the system to identify available shelter matching to the survivor’s needs. Organizations sign up to participate in the program and are then able to gain access to this secure, webbased system. Those providing referrals through the system include staff from social service, health care, behavioral health, homeless, criminal justice, tribal and other organizations.

Leaving an abusive or exploitative relationship can increase the danger for survivors and their children. This includes the time when the survivor is taking steps toward leaving the relationship or even in the weeks or months after leaving. Access to safety planning with trained survivor-centered organizations is critical during these stages. Organizations that sign up for this program commit to providing support and complete training to better serve survivors.

Before, organizations would either provide a laundry list of shelter phone numbers to survivors to call or assist those survivors in calling each one. The goal of the new system is to reduce the number of calls survivors need to make to find safe shelter and to prevent survivors from having to repeat their traumatic stories.

When our local domestic violence and human trafficking prevention councils first came together to address the shelter crisis, we realized that we were in new territory. Even though we all serve survivors, the needs and goals for domestic violence and human trafficking survivors are different.

After extensive planning, we were able to generate a plan that was streamlined, survivor-centered and trauma-informed.

The average response time of bed availability is within four minutes, with a possible match in nearly 80 percent of the requests. Most program participants have minor children accompanying them. A match is made when staff using the Safe Shelter Collaborative system enters such survivor details as describing the type of abuse and whether the person is pregnant or has children. Participating shelters receive an alert and respond with whether they have availability matching the survivor’s needs. The survivor is then supported in following up with these shelters.

San Diego County has an incredible network of collaborative organizations and councils working to better the lives of survivors of abuse and violence. We take every dollar intended for survivors and stretch it a far as possible. Next on our list is increasing the number of safe places for survivors to stay, such as emergency beds, transitional and permanent housing, and hotel stays to meet the needs when no housing is available. No survivor should ever leave an abusive situation and end up on the streets.

Before, organizations would either provide a laundry list of shelter phone numbers to survivors to call or assist those survivors in calling each one.