Late last week, the Lake Family Resource Center, which is leading the domestic violence shelter building effort, was awarded a $1 million forgivable loan from the California Department of Housing and Community Development's Emergency Housing Assistance Program, said the center's executive director, Gloria Flaherty.
“It's phenomenal,” said Flaherty.
Flaherty and the center's fiscal director, Lisa Fronsman, attended the committee meeting last week, where the vote was unanimous to make the loan to the Lake County shelter effort. An official award letter will be delivered in June.
According to the program's requirements, if in 10 years the shelter building is still being used for its original purpose, the 10-year, 3-percent loan will be forgiven, said Flaherty. “Payments would start in 10 years if we changed the use of it, which obviously we wouldn't.”
The $1 million forgivable loan, coupled with $130,000 Lake Family Resource Center has raised over the past year in local fundraising, constitutes about one-third of the project's total cost, Flaherty explained.
This new award will help pay for architectural drawings and most of the building itself plus the beginning of the permit process, said Flaherty. Once the paperwork is completed, the center will begin seeking potential architects and project managers.
The building is to be located at the corner of Live Oak and Highway 29 in Kelseyville, said Flaherty. The land, owned by Sutter Lakeside Hospital, will be rented to the resource center for $1 a year as part of a 50-year lease.
The county itself has set aside $100,000 for the shelter construction project, said Flaherty. Earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors also agreed to waive all of the shelter's planning fees, although they were unable to exclude Special Districts fees.
“The county has been wonderful,” Flaherty said.
One of the big costs will be site preparation, which the center has to raise money for this year, said Flaherty.
Receiving the forgivable loan will put some time lines on the project. Flaherty said the program guidelines require ground to be broken 12 months after the award is finalized, with a possibility of a one-year extension.
She said she believes the award won't be finalized until August or September, putting groundbreaking around September of 2009 and completion in 2010.
“We are under a bit of a time crunch,” she said.
In the meantime, they're hoping to raise another $1 million in the next year through grants and more forgivable loans, but that includes about $600,000 that will need to be raised locally, she said.
Donations also can be made in the form of services. Flaherty said the Moore Family Winery has donated a week of site preparation, and Kelseyville Lumber is providing building materials at cost plus 5 percent.
The center is seeking some clarification on whether or not they can use volunteer labor for the project, which has a prevailing wage requirement, she said.
The domestic violence shelter currently run by Lake Family Resource Center is a small, 14-bed facility in a confidential location that offers more than 4,000 bed nights a year, said Flaherty.
The new shelter would be more high profile, housed in a building that would eventually house Lake Family Resource Center's offices, as well as meeting rooms and classrooms available to the public. Locating all services in one place will allow center staff to coordinate services and work more efficiently, said Flaherty.
Moving to a more visible location which also houses the center's other services is believed to lend a level of safety and community ownership, said Flaherty.
The new shelter will have 25 beds, and will be served by the same six staffers, said Flaherty.
Each family will have its own room, with single women sharing rooms in some cases, she said. There will be common living, meal and laundry facilities.
The need for a larger shelter is definitely there, said Flaherty.
“Lake County has a high incidence of domestic violence, for whatever combination of reasons,” she said. One of the primary reasons includes a growing population.
Earlier this month, the 14-bed facility housed 20 people who needed shelter, she said.
The growing need for services is impacted by a number of things, including community growth and greater awareness of the shelter, said Flaherty.
While most of the shelter's service are used by women, they also serve battered men, about three to four a year plus their families, who receive all the same counseling and support services as female domestic violence victims, Flaherty said.
Due to the terms of the shelter's funding, the men are not housed there. Instead, Lake Family Resource Center provides them shelter through vouchers for hotel and motel stays, which will continue with the new shelter, she said.
“There may come a time when we need to look at other shelter options for that population,” she added.
The average stay for the local shelter is less than three months, although some women have been there longer than six months due to the lack of transitional housing, which Flaherty said is the next step, when women are ready to live independently but still have some case worker support and assistance with rent.
In those cases, women have generally arrived a place where they have jobs or other means of support. Flaherty said after three months 67 percent of the women served by the shelter have jobs.
“Many women who come into the shelter have not lived independently,” she explained.
Once the shelter project is finished, Flaherty anticipates Lake Family Resource Center will take on transitional housing projects.
If you would like to assist the shelter effort, call Lake Family Resource Center at 262-1611 or 888-775-8336.
Gail Salituri's Inspirations Gallery also is holding an art fundraiser in the name of Barbara LaForge to benefit the shelter project. For more information contact the gallery at 263-4366 or visit Salituri's Web page, www.gailsalituri.com/Memorial.html.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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