Funding Hope

When a person becomes a victim of domestic violence, their whole world is turned topsy-turvy. What was safe is no longer.
Sometimes, victims are left homeless. Sometimes, the victim is a child.
Iola’s Hope Unlimited seeks to serve such victims, providing services as diverse as referrals to medical or counseling providers, advocacy in court, a staffed domestic violence shelter and a supervised location for children of violence to meet with their non-custodial parent.
Kansas Attorney General Steve Six, in Iola Thursday to commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Month, said his office “provides financial grants to child exchange centers” and victims services throughout the state — including those at Hope Unlimited.
“October is the month we really focus on remembering the struggles these families are facing,” Six said to a welcoming crowd in pouring rain outside the Allen County courthouse.
Additionally, Six said, “we try to coordinate victims services,” including providing a crime victims compensation fund that can pay for immediate medical expenses, transportation and therapy for victims of domestic abuse.
For providers, “we look to see how we can make shelters better,” Six said. “We want to set minimum standards; we help with training; we provide policy and procedure manuals.”
The Attorney General’s office also provides operational funds.
Approximately 60 percent of Hope Unlimited’s victims services budget comes through the Attorney General’s office, said Hope Unlimited Executive Director Dorothy Sparks. Without that funding, “we would not be here, we absolutely would not,” Sparks said.
Funds from Six’s office partially fund one of three full time positions at Hope’s emergency shelter, which is staffed round the clock, 365 days a year, Sparks said. Volunteers also help staff the house.
“We had 90 people come through the shelter last year,” Sparks said. That equates to 1,914 “shelter units used,” she said. Shelter units are determined by calculating “the number of people that come in the shelter times the number of nights they stay,” Sparks said.
The shelter can house a maximum of 22 individuals, “and that is really pushing it. That is using pull-out beds and counting baby cribs. By the time we get 14 in there it getting really crowded,” she noted.
In addition to emergency housing, Hope Unlimited provided outreach support 493 times last year, including taking victims to hospitals and accompanying them to court appearances, Sparks said. The hotline fielded 657 crises calls in 2008 as well, she said.
Service area for the agency is primarily Allen, Neosho and Anderson counties. Some clients are served from Woodson and Wilson counties, as well, Sparks said.
“We try to keep everything within 30 minutes,” she said.

ANOTHER HOPE Unlimited service funded through the Attorney General’s office is the Child Exchange and Parenting Center. The center’s $44,000 annual budget “is bare bones” Sparks said. Six agreed.
His office provides half the funding for the center, located within the Hope Unlimited office, that allows non-custodial parents to visit with their children in a safe, supervised environment, said Michelle Meiwes, Visitation Coordinator.
Meiwes said 88 families used the center last year, for a total of 257 visits.
The Attorney General’s office will also seek additional funding for shelters, Six said, beyond the operational grants his office normally provides.
“We had some requests from facilities that needed improvements to their shelters last year,” he said. “We approached Walmart and they funded it.” The shelters in question used the money to repair roofs and complete facilities maintenance, Six said.
“We try to think out of the box when it comes to finding a way to help,” he said.