Shelter for Women Faces Closure : Funding: Panel recommends ending county payments for battered women’s facility.

A South Bay home for battered women is one of two shelters in the county that may be forced to close if the Board of Supervisors approves a budget cut recommended by a county advisory panel, shelter administrators say.

The Domestic Violence Council recommended earlier this week that the county discontinue $60,000 yearly payments to shelters in Glendale and the South Bay.

The South Bay shelter, operated by the 1736 Family Crisis Center, is located in one of the area’s beach cities, but its address is kept confidential to protect residents.

Although 16 other homes for battered women operate in the county, the South Bay and Glendale shelters provide unique services. Known as transitional shelters, they are the only two where women can stay for more than 45 days.

Social workers and law enforcement officials who make up the Domestic Violence Council said the cuts are needed to assure that there is enough money to operate the county’s 16 other domestic violence shelters. The council recommended that the other shelters continue to receive $80,000 apiece per year.

The supervisors are expected to consider the proposed cuts Tuesday or the next week. The reductions would take effect July 1.

Officials for the two shelters said they are lobbying the supervisors to prevent the cuts, which would leave them to survive on private donations and other government grants.

The proposed cuts were triggered by a slowdown in the collection of marriage license fees--which pay for the county’s contribution to women’s shelters--and overly optimistic budgeting by the county Department of Community and Senior Citizen Services, department officials said.

The Glendale and South Bay shelters were singled out for reductions because of their designation as transitional shelters, whereas the 16 other county homes are emergency shelters.

Women can stay in the emergency shelters for a maximum of 45 days after escaping an abusive mate, then must move out on their own or into one of the transitional shelters if they choose not to return to their homes.

The county collects $35 for every marriage license it issues, with $19 going to domestic violence shelters. State law recommends that the marriage license money be used to pay for emergency shelters and not longer-term housing that the Glendale and South Bay shelters provide, said Larry Johnson, assistant director of the county Department of Community and Senior Citizen Services.

Directors of the transitional shelters said private donations and other government grants might not be enough to make up for the lost money.

The $60,000 cut would reduce the budget of the South Bay shelter by one-fourth, the equivalent of salaries and benefits for two full-time employees, said Ron Troupe, president of the board of directors of the 1736 Family Crisis Center. The center also operates an emergency shelter for battered women, a shelter for runaways and a mental health clinic.

“We would try to make every effort not to close the transitional shelter,” Troupe said, “but if we don’t have the funding, that is definitely an option.”

The Glendale shelter would lose 40% of its $150,000 budget if the cut is approved, said Pax Adair, director of the Glendale YWCA, which operates the shelter.

“This was all sprung on us rather suddenly,” Adair said. “If it is approved, there is a good possibility we will have to shut down.”

Adair, who came to the shelter eight years ago as a resident, said transitional facilities are just as important as the others.

“We give women more time to build their resources and their skills,” Adair said. Without such shelters, she said, “a high percentage of women go back on the street or go back to the batterer, because they are not ready emotionally, financially or in any other way.”

Carol Adelkoff, director of the South Bay shelter, said the loss of the homes would put women in danger.

“We find that it is almost certain the abuse will continue when they go back home,” she said, “and, often, it escalates.

The South Bay shelter has beds for 12 women and children, and the Glendale shelter houses 18 women and children.

County officials called each of the 18 shelters last week to inform them that funding for the fiscal year beginning July 1 would drop from $1.4 million to $1 million. The Domestic Violence Council recommended, however, that the 16 other shelters continue to receive the same funding, a rate that would come to $1.28 million for the year.

The county has allowed the marriage license fund to be overdrawn by $225,000 in the last two years, but reductions must be made to make up the deficit, Johnson said.

The number of marriage licenses issued by the county has decreased from 76,066 in fiscal year 1986-’87 to 71,834 in 1988-’89, with an attendant decrease in money for women’s shelters, Johnson said.

He said the county probably erred in not reducing funding for the shelters earlier, when the drop-off in marriages began.

Adelkoff said she hopes the board will decide to spread the shortfall to all 18 shelters.

“That is one good option available to them,” Adelkoff said. “Then everyone could try to make up the difference with private fund raising.”