Davis Blasts Red Tape, OKs Shelter Funding

An embarrassed Gov. Gray Davis delivered a rare public scolding Thursday to officials of his own administration for denying grants to needy women’s shelters “due to the most trivial of technicalities.”

Davis’ criticism came as he signed a $2-million bailout bill for 10 domestic violence shelters across the state. The new law will provide funds that officials of the governor’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning denied this summer because the grant applications were not correctly typed.

As a result, the shelters, including the highly praised Haven House in Pasadena, faced the virtual certainty of shutting their doors permanently. Some had begun staff layoffs.

But shortly before it adjourned last month, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved the emergency appropriation bill (AB 664) by Assemblyman John Dutra and state Sen. Liz Figueroa, both Democrats from Fremont.

In a letter to the Assembly announcing the signing of the bill, Davis took the unusual step of criticizing the justice office.

“Many of these shelters had been consistently funded for years and serve rural areas where women and children who are victims of violence may find few other safe places to turn for help,” he said.

In at least one case, a typed application was rejected because it was double-spaced instead of single-spaced. Haven House was turned aside because it sent more pages than permitted to describe its programs.

Davis said the application rules were accompanied by a change in how the grant applications were rated, a decision that he said was made “without informing the governor’s office.”

Officials in the justice planning office have said they restricted the number of pages that could be submitted and created other new requirements so all applicants would be judged by the same rules.

For example, they said, it would have been unfair to accept many pages of explanation from some applicants but restrict others to only a single page.

But operators of the women’s shelters, all of which had successfully won earlier state grants, said they were astonished that such minor errors would cost them funds to protect victims of domestic violence.

Clearly embarrassed, Davis said he will order the Department of Finance to investigate and report back on reforming the financing of women’s shelters and strategies for keeping this “important safety net intact.”