Sanctuary for Women Needs ‘a Good Fairy’

For eight years, a center for battered women has offered sympathy, solace and refuge for hundreds of women and their children in Santa Clarita. It has served women who were threatened, beaten and even stabbed by boyfriends and husbands.

Financial problems, however, threaten to close down the program. And the center--much like the women it serves--is slowly trying to regroup and get its affairs in order.

“We need a good fairy right now,” said Robin Shine Ackerman, a member of the Assn. to Aid Victims of Domestic Violence, which runs the program.

The association hopes to hear in May whether it will receive a federal grant of $40,000, she said. For a brief time, the center closed, and then reopened with drastically reduced services. It will try to remain open through the summer on its little remaining grant money, income from a thrift shop operated by the association, and occasional donations.

The center, which operates out of a small office in Santa Clarita, provides counseling, operates a hot line and arranges shelter for women fleeing violence.

Catherine Clark, a licensed counselor and association member, said the center is the only such program in the Santa Clarita Valley.

“This was started by women who were concerned about domestic violence,” she said. “Nobody else is going to provide for these people.”

As the rapidly developing valley continues to grow, “the need is going to increase,” Clark said.

Between 1988 and 1989, Ackerman said, the number of hot line calls more than doubled to about 900. Of the 900 calls, 215 people required some sort of ongoing service, from shelter to counseling to legal assistance.

The center provides a unique service in the valley, said Steve Kassel, a psychotherapist and president of the Santa Clarita Valley Health Council, a coalition of private and public health agencies.

It is difficult for any woman involved in a violent relationship to seek help, Kassel said. But if the only professional services are far from home, seeking that aid is even harder. If the center closes, “I think less people will seek help,” he said.

The center’s financial problems surfaced in December, when the association failed to win some private grants, Ackerman said. The center also underestimated its expenses and despite its problems would not turn away women in financial need, said Clara Stroup, a member of the association’s board of directors.

“If the individual could afford to pay only a dollar, that was accepted,” Stroup said. Clark said the board of directors is now re-evaluating the fee schedule, which ranged from $15 to $85 for counseling or other services.

Ackerman conceded that “we may have been a little ambitious in what we were trying to do.” But she defends the policy of not turning away women who could not afford to pay for shelter or counseling. “You can’t say no,” she said.

There are signs of hope, however. The association’s landlord donated this month’s $650 rent to keep the office open and the thrift shop still produces about $1,500 a month for the program.

It takes from $5,000 to $10,000 to operate the program each month, depending on the number of women seeking services, Ackerman said.

Two full-time counselors laid off last month were brought back last week, although on drastically reduced schedules, Clark said. Two counseling programs discontinued last month also were revived this week. And grant money already in the bank will keep a group counseling program for women operating through the summer, she said.

Meanwhile, Clark and her husband, Owen Clark, a volunteer counselor at the center, have volunteered to act as executive directors of the program until more money can be found to hire a permanent director.

“We’re not out of the woods,” Clark said. “We ‘re still looking for the community to help us meet this need.”