|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Safe Place Seeks Community Support In Light of Zion City Council DecisionNOTE: On July 7, the City Council of Zion denied A Safe Place’s request to have all of part of building, engineering, and impact fees waived that had not appeared in original budgets associated with the agency’s construction of the County’s first transitional living program for battered women and their children. The following is A Safe Place’s public expression of disappointment in that decision:
For nearly a quarter of a century, A Safe Place/ Lake County Crisis Center has been sheltering and counseling victims of domestic violence who have fled their homes in fear for their safety and that of their children. Nearly 500 have knocked on our door just this year and been welcomed into an atmosphere of support and security. Unfortunately, affordable housing is the major barrier to self-sufficiency for many who leave everything behind in their flight for safety. This means that many battered women must choose between returning to a home where their abuser is present and is abusive to them and their children or becoming homeless. A Safe Place’s dream to remove that last barrier, to provide the first transitional living program for battered women and their children in Lake County, is finally becoming a reality. But we have faced our own challenges in planning to open the first wing of a program designed to provide safe, affordable housing and to foster self-sufficiency for 20 women and their children. The project has not moved along as fast as we would have hoped, first in finding suitable property for this project and then in securing funding during a post-911 economy. We were dealt another blow last week when A Safe Place was denied a waiver of building, engineering, and impact fees by the Zion City Council. Charges that were never a part of the project budget must now be added to the monies we are still attempting to raise for project completion this year. We can’t help but hope that the many friends we have made in businesses, civic groups and faith communities in Zion over the years will come forward to help us. In our fiscal year just ended June 30, 2004, A Safe Place provided 28 Zion women and 24 children 1,109 nights of emergency and temporary shelter when they fled the danger in their homes. Another 165 women, 18 men and 12 children from Zion received supportive counseling and court advocacy services. Nearly 550 community residents learned about how domestic violence affects them and their whole community through A Safe Place’s community outreach and school prevention education programs. And 49 abusers from Zion attended batterer intervention programs where they must face responsibility for their behavior. There are never any fees for victims’ services from A Safe Place. Not for the 1,109 nights of shelter and 1,794 hours of residential counseling this year. Not for nearly 200 hours of nonresidential advocacy and counseling. Not for prevention education to guard our adolescents and teach them about healthy dating relationships. What would the impact fees be for Zion to provide these services? More importantly, what would the impact be if there were no such services? Phyllis A. DeMott |
|
Related News
|
|
|
Everyone has the right to a violence-free, safe and healthy life. Copyright ©2001-2008 A Safe Place. All rights reserved. |
|
