The Verde Valley Sanctuary has existed in the area as a resource for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse for 25 years. Its 28-bed shelter — the location of which is kept secret to prevent retaliation by abusers — is supplemented by two thrift stores that help the Sanctuary raise money beyond its government funding, and separate legal advocacy offices and outreach offices that aim to provide survivors with help even if they don’t need to spend time sleeping at the shelter.
The ability to help victims beyond housing them is vital, because according to Sanctuary administrators, the shelter has been over capacity for more than half a year.
“There’s been a rapid increase in our occupancy,” Verde Valley Sanctuary Executive Director Matthew Kelley said. “All domestic violence shelters in Arizona are full. Probably across the country they’re all full.”
The sanctuary works in conjunction with the Arizona Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Coalition, frequently transporting clients to wherever they can find room, or to get them away from abusive partners. Recently, they have found that most of their partners are frequently unable to take clients either.
“We call Show Low, we call Prescott, we call Flagstaff, we call White River, Kingman — we’ll go out of state,” Kelley said. In his experience, other shelters would usually be unable to help, and VVS is frequently called asking for help as well. “The domestic violence hotline in Phoenix reports a seven-fold increase in hotline calls over the past year.”
According to Kelley, the Phoenix hotline has found that the increase seems tied to politics and the heightened attention paid to sexual abuse in the past year, such as with the #MeToo movement. Sanctuary administrators said they encountered a spike in calls during the Senate hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of committing sexual assault decades ago, by area women who said they had experienced something similar to what Kavanaugh’s accuser described.
“It’s becoming less something that we’re sweeping under the carpet. We’re addressing it,” said Peg Trulson, therapeutic case manager for the Sanctuary. “We’re realizing the tremendous amount of damage when we don’t address it.”
Johanna Rutschow, who serves as victim advocate for the Cottonwood Police Department, has also found a greater willingness in domestic violence victims to speak openly about their experiences, and to get help.
“I think it’s becoming more acceptable to be open about that darker side of one’s life,” Rutschow said. “I think the #MeToo movement has something to do with that. It empowers people to be able to speak to what they’re going through and they don’t feel as isolated.”
Rutschow noted, however, that the women she worked with were not citing #MeToo specifically as their reason for being open, something she was somewhat surprised by.
“Some of it has to do with us, because we are accepting a wider range of people now,” Kelley said. “It used to be when you call our hotline and say ‘I’ve got this problem’ — we used to ask a series of screen-out questions. Do you have mental health issues, substance abuse issues, a history of violence, felony issues? If you said yes to any of those we wouldn’t be able to help you. But now we screen in. Now we say, ‘What is your problem? Tell us your problem.’ We try to find a way to help you, even if you have a substance abuse problem, or a history of violence, or you’re just out of prison. We’ll try to figure out a way to help you.”
Part of the higher demand has come as well from changes in the length of time that aid workers believe is needed for recovery. Where in the past, shelters were more eager to help victims transition out of the shelter promptly, their new paradigm expects a two-year project of helping a survivor of abuse build a new and stable life after having to escape an old one.
Kelley said he sees domestic violence and sexual abuse as just parts of broader problems in society that affect people at the margins. He said he feels it has become more difficult for single mothers to be able to earn enough to raise a family on their own, and more difficult for families to afford places to live, leaving even more women trapped in abusive relationships.
At a Cottonwood City Council meeting on Dec. 18, Kelley spoke in favor of a proposal from the Verde Valley Homeless Coalition seeking funding for transitional housing that would help homeless people find a stable place to live temporarily as they seek a more permanent solution.
“We’re really trying to take care of our own people, as a whole,” Kelley said at the meeting.
Federal and state law mandate that domestic violence shelters must care for victims independent of citizenship status, but Kelley and Trulson have said that they have seen what they view as a worrying disappearance of undocumented residents in the area in the face of recent heavy crackdowns on illegal immigrants in the past two years. They point to findings from national domestic violence organizations that indicate undocumented immigrants now fear coming forward after being abused, worried it might lead to getting nabbed by immigration enforcement.
Even with the Sanctuary’s resources taxed to their limits, its leadership insist on expressing a desire for anyone in the community needing help to reach out via its 24/7 hotline at 634-2511. They emphasized that even if the shelter is full, the outreach and legal advocacy offices can do their best to help those in need. When victims really need a place, the Sanctuary has also paid for short hotel stays when necessary.
“We always do something,” Trulson said. “Always, even in the most drastic of situations where we have no resources, we will safety plan with somebody in place, and it’s amazing how effective that can be. We’ll help a woman identify pockets of safety in her immediate [surroundings]. That can be very effective.”
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
