County sets aside $5 million to help domestic violence victims

Itwas in a shrub in a corner of her neighbor’s house down the street, trembling with fear in torn pajamas, a housecoat and flip-flops underneath pitch black skies, where Dorothy Yamamoto finally made her life-changing phone call to the Gilroy Police Department.

“I told them that my husband tried to kill me and that I escaped out of my house,” she recalled. “Please send help, but with no sirens or lights. I begged them ‘just request it; please, because if he hears the sirens then he’s going to be alerted tomy absence and he’ll get here to finish the job.’ ”

On Aug. 13, Yamamoto, a mother of three and grandmother of five from Gilroy, successfully escaped her abusive soon-to-be ex-husband, Jerry. But, 13 others that died from domestic violence in Santa Clara County last year weren’t as lucky.

Aiming to help survivors like Yamamoto, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Thursday announced it is setting aside $5 million in its budget for the upcoming fiscal year toward domestic violence programs. The funds, a substantial increase over the $800,000 allocation in previous years, will help the county provide additional resources to victims for housing, employment training, mental health and childcare, Supervisor Cindy Chavez said at a news conference on Thursday.

“These nonprofits, and the county’s been doing this work without the kinds of resources that it needs,” Chavez said. “And there isn’t one person up here who doesn’t have a story about how domestic violence has impacted their lives, a family member’s life or a friend’s life. It is an epidemic and Santa Clara County today is going to do something about that.”

County Executive Officer Jeff Smith also announced that in addition to the $5 million ongoing allotment, the county would consider doling out another $5 million in January.

“How many times we think of dealing with it by merely trying to deal with it after the event has occurred? But what we’re doing is we’re challenging ourselves today with the release of our revised budget to actually come out with a comprehensive approach to actually stop intimate partner violence in Santa Clara County forever,” he said.

The funding boost was prompted by the need to curtail themore than 20,000 calls for service the county receives on its domestic violence hotline a year, and that’s excluding 911 calls. It likely also stemmed from the thousands of requests for shelter from domestic violence survivors that go unmet due to lack of funding.

Yamamoto is one of two survivors that were invited to speak at the press conference. She said her husband bludgeoned her with a Maglite flashlight late at night in her house when she was recovering from surgery for breast cancer.

“Only a few months after my treatment, stillweak and exhausted from the side effects, my husband attacked me with a deadly weapon in his attempt to take my life,” she said, her voice wavering.

Yamamoto credited first responders and the nonprofit Community Solutions with pulling her out of a dark time. Today, she is cancer-free and rid of her abuser.

“I needed every service they provided, from the restraining order to getting a divorce; these people stepped up, they let you know that they’re in your corner,” she said. “I was able to access everything I needed formy needs and the services they gave me were invaluable.”

The board is expected to take a vote on the allocation at a budget hearing on Monday.