Committee Hearing, March 19, 2012

Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, March 19, 2012 10:06 a.m. (Hearing recessed.) RESOLUTION - 120092 - Resolution authorizing City Council's Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings to investigate the availability of emergency shelters in Philadelphia for victims of domestic violence who have been forced from their homes by violence or who need to escape abusive situations. - - - Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com CHAIRMAN JONES: Good morning. The Committee on Public Safety is now called to order. I believe that Councilman Johnson, Councilman Bill Greenlee, Councilman Mark Squilla are on the Committee and are present. Will the Court Clerk please read the title of the resolution.

Resolution 120092, authorizing City Council's Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings to investigate the availability of emergency shelters in Philadelphia for victims of domestic violence who have been forced from their homes by violence or who need to escape abusive situations. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. Before I call the first panel to testify, I'd like to recognize Councilman Johnson, the sponsor of this resolution for remarks.

Good morning. I would like to first thank all of you for taking time out of your schedule to provide testimony for this most serious and critical issue. I'd like to also thank Councilman and Chair of the Public Safety Committee, Curtis Jones, for making sure that we had the opportunity to host this Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com hearing at this timely fashion. And I'd also like to thank all of my colleagues who are here in support of this resolution to take testimony regarding the lack of emergency shelters particularly for individuals who are experiencing domestic violence in the City of Philadelphia. It amazes me that the City of Philadelphia finds just one emergency shelter dedicated solely to abused women and their children. Obviously, this shortage of domestic violence victims who wish to escape bad situations creates an unhealthy situation not only for women and their children, but for all of Philadelphia. We have to be aware that homelessness and domestic homicide rates are on the rise and Women Against Abuse was forced to turn away staggering numbers of approximately 7,705 plus shelter in the year 2011. In 2010, there were 116,000 domestic abuse incidents that were responded to by the Philadelphia Police Department. From 2007 to 2009, the domestic homicide rate rose almost 50 percent in Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia from 2008 to 2009, it went up by 71 percent from 21 to 36 homicides. In 2010, according Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com to police statistics there were 30 domestic homicides in the City. I've worked on this issue as a State Representative and it always -- and it amazes me during that time when I had the opportunity to actually visit the domestic violence shelter that's operated by the Women Against Abuse the lack of resources and support for them. More importantly, I couldn't understand and still don't understand how come there's only one particular emergency shelter for individuals who suffer from domestic violence. And the reason why I went to emphasize emergency because there have been some questions early on about support shelters for shelters across the board. An emergency shelter is when you have to be out of that situation immediately, not later on, not transitional programing over a three to six month period. But in the middle of the night me and my children have to leave. And that's what my emphasis is on not so much overall just trying to get support from homeless shelter's standpoint. But specifically when a person is in an emergency situation and they have to flee a situation where their lives are at stake support particularly for them from that Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com prospective. And I just wanted to clarify that because there has been some questions that have been arisen regarding my approach, and I just wanted to clarify that. But in particular the emergency aspect of supporting individuals of suffering from domestic violence. So with that being said, I'm going to turn this over to the Chairman of the Public Safety, Councilman Curtis Jones to get started. Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you, Councilman. I just want to applaud you for bringing this issue once again to our attention. Councilman Greenlee who is also here has been a champion of this issue and has constantly brought it before the body, and it has been a beckon of hope. When I start to look at what safety means, it means different things to different people. But for those seeking refuge I call it, from domestic abuse it's more than a feeling, it's a question of life and death. And I wanted to know if Councilman Greenlee would say something.

Just very quickly, Chairman. Thank you very much for those words. I want to commend you for holding this Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com important hearing and certainly Councilman Johnson for sponsoring this resolution. As with so many other people and members of Council, I think it's very, very important that we do as much as possible to assist victims of domestic violence. Just a few weeks ago I visited the domestic violence shelter that Councilman Johnson referenced and together with my legislative director Will Marcono we were very impressed with the site, but even more so with what I'll call the atmosphere. It was a very sort of peaceful look and feel to the place, which I know that's something those victims and their families really need in that kind of situation. And the problem obviously as Councilman Johnson said is that there are not enough sites and not enough room for the people that need it. And I always think Government is supposed to be about helping people, I know that some people dismiss that, but I think that's what it's supposed to be about. And these are some of the most vulnerable people in the City that we need to help. So I hope this hearing will further assist us in finding help for these people that need it. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN JONES: Are there any Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com other Council who would like to speak? You're okay? Will the that Clerk please bring forth the panel.

Dainette Mintz and Al B. Quarles. CHAIRMAN JONES: Would you please approach the witness table. Councilwoman Blackwell may have needed her right away. Why don't we skip to the second panel and come back to the first one again.

Jeannine Lisitski and Meghan Kincade. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. Would you please approach the witness table and state your full name for the record and submit your testimony. JEANNINE LISITSKI: My name is Jeannine Lisitski, executive director for Women Against Abuse. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. MEGHAN KINCADE: My name Meghan Kincade, I'm the director of shelter services for Women Against Abuse. com violence. We appreciate the opportunity to testify here today. I want to thank the Public Safety Committee and Chair Councilman Jones for scheduling this hearing and inviting us to testify. Women Against Abuse is the leading domestic violence service provider in Pennsylvania, and as you know we operate the only emergency shelter in the City for abused women and their children. We also operate the nations first legal center for domestic violence victims as well as transitional housing, the Philadelphia domestic violence hotline and community wide education to prevent domestic and teen dating violence. Our emergency shelter is funded through the intersection of a number of line items in the city, state and federal budgets as well as private funding. Philadelphia's Office of Supportive Housing has been fundamental in supporting our shelter as well as the Philadelphia Domestic Violence Hotline. com Assistance line items as well. As the only emergency shelter in Philadelphia we were forced to turn away 7,705 requests for safe shelter this past fiscal year, due to our 100-bed facility being at full capacity. Our shelter constantly operates at full capacity. And last year we served 615 people. As you can see that number of turn aways has skyrocketed -- CHAIRMAN JONES: Can you bring that up for the Panel that cannot see. JEANNINE LISITSKI: -- over the years. About four years ago it was about 1,700, and each year it's expedientially increased to the total of 7,705 in fiscal year '11. And when we took a look at fiscal year '12, the first six months, we already hit 4,800 and some turn aways, so that number continues to rise. With about six shelter beds for every 100,000 residents, Philadelphia has the lowest ratio of domestic violence shelter beds to residents in comparison to nearby cities such as Baltimore, Washington, DC. This is exacerbated by the fact that many Philadelphians don't have the resources they need to escape abuse. com the poorest major city in the United States. As the leading domestic violence service provider in the state, programs in our neighboring counties are often looking to us for resources, but ironically it is our neighboring county shelters that have to support our residents. Domestic violence shelters in these neighboring counties are serving high proportions of Philadelphia County residents because of our emergency shelter is full. Without any other place to turn, victims of abuse often return to a violent home with their abuser. Not only does this put women and children in dangerous and sometimes lethal situations, it also puts increased pressure on City services such as law enforcement, hospitals, child welfare and an array of other systems. Not to mention the perpetuation of the cycle of violence for our children and for the community at large. There is an increasing need to connect with victims prior to them reaching the dire circumstance in which they need emergency shelter, and Women Against Abuse has created a number of innovative programs to intervene at earlier stages in the cycle of violence. com for women and children who are in a time of specific crisis and for whom the violence has become devastating. The need for a temporary and immediate shelter is a priority for survivors of domestic violence who don't have the luxury of time to wait out placements in other support housing programs. There is a strong correlation between domestic violence and homelessness, as 92 percent of homeless women have experienced severe physical or sexual abuse at some point in their lives.

Additionally, the United States Conference of Mayors has determined domestic violence is one of the top three causes of homelessness among families in America's major cities. Domestic violence victims present unique housing needs, especially in regard to their safety and confidentiality. As advocates, we know that the point at which victims of domestic violence choose to leave their relationship, becomes the most dangerous and lethal time for them. For this reason, the location of our emergency shelter is confidential. This is a protection that general family shelters cannot provide. And as such, it puts victims who are escaping potentially lethal situations in elevated danger. com As was stated, domestic violence homicides have been on the rise both in the state and city and police are responding to over 115,000 calls for assistance a year. This hearing recognizes the only need for basic safety in situations of domestic abuse, and works to break the cycle of violence in our city by providing the most fundamental resources for survivors, a safe haven. Women Against Abuse strongly supports the increased shelter resources. And we would like to again thank the Committee for your support and for your attention to this important matter. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you very much for your testimony. I'd like to recognize both Councilwoman Blackwell and Councilwoman Tasco who has joined us for this hearing. Please proceed. MEGHAN KINCADE: Good morning. And thank you all very much for taking -- CHAIRMAN JONES: Can you state your name again. MEGHAN KINCADE: Oh, yes. Good morning, my name is Meghan Kincade and I'm the director of shelter services for Women Against Abuse. I thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today. com As Jeannine mentioned, Women Against Abuse is the largest domestic violence program in the state and we operate the only emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence and their children in Philadelphia. As the director of the shelter, I know all too well how short our 100-bed facility comes to fulfilling the needs we see. Unfortunately, we know how prevalent domestic violence is in our community. Reportedly, one in four women have been a victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner. And as advocates, we know that this is likely an underrepresentation of abuse victims, as it is a crime that often goes unreported. With a ratio of six shelter beds for every 100,000 Philadelphians, we cannot meet the shelter needs of domestic violence victims in crisis in our community. Domestic violence shelters provide services in a confidential location. And it is important to note that it is these services that are crucial to helping families live outside of violence. All of our staff receive mandatory 45 hour domestic violence training to ensure the competent delivery of specialized services. com informed in domestic violence to adequately assist our clients in living stably outside of violent relationships. The expertise of our advocates in understanding domestic violence provides clients with support in navigating welfare law, housing rights and safety planning while empowering clients to build on these resources. The women and children who come to our shelter lose all of their physical, financial and familial support resources, and benefit from trained family and child advocates able to navigate foreign mainstream systems to ensure they live safely and stably long term. Without competent care and a safe physical environment, victims are at risk of homicide. We know that the most lethal time for a victim is when she or he attempts to or successfully leaves the abusive relationship. Providing effective care for children in our shelter is vital. We take that commitment seriously in providing supportive services that understand the impact of violence on their social, emotional and psychological development.

In fact, half of the people we serve each year are children and a majority of them are under the age of six. com shelter we turn away each year is staggering, it is important to look at what that number represents. It represents the women and children who are willing to risk everything to enter our shelter. These families are enduring violence so severe, that they are willing to elect a destabilizing entrance into shelter over their own homes. What this number does not reflect is how many of our turn aways have lost their lives to violence, despite seeking help from our full shelter. We have turned away families who have called us from cars. We have turned away injured women who have called us from hospital beds. We have turned away our neighbors at their most critical time of need. It is a life and death priority for our community to assist these families. How will we begin to ensure our streets are safe when our families aren't even safe in their own homes. How will our children learn that violence is not a solution if they do not have the opportunity to live outside of it. There's a welcome mural in our shelter and it was painted and tiled by children in our after school program. We asked them what the shelter meant to them, and they gave us words like happy, peace, love, joy. com have children who have experience the level of violence that our kids have and they can still afford to believe these things, I believe it's prudent that we invest in this. Thank you all very much for bringing this issue to the table, we appreciate it. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you for your testimony. A couple of brief questions, and I'll open the room for my committee members to talk to you. But your testimony first of all was very good. Over the last four years have there been increasing -- I've seen on your chart in domestic violence and did you attribute that to the economy or what factors do you attribute that to? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Well, I think it's important to note that when any -- when any income in a family is lost we know that there is an increased possibility that there will be violence. We know that the economy has found a lot of our citizens unemployed, and I'm fairly certain that as it goes on so does the violence in the home. I also know that as the economy has caused major cuts to supportive services, obviously we also see that people are not getting the assistance they actually need. com CHAIRMAN JONES: And very quickly. The number of males and youth -- I'm guessing it's predominantly women that's seeking shelter, but are there on an instance males and are there on instances youth that are seeking this refuge? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Yes, there are. And I have to say that the supportive services for that population is virtually non-existent. CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you. Good morning. JEANNINE LISITSKI: Good morning.

Thank you. The sites which one of them is located in my district. If you had the resources are you able to expand the methods of -- or would you be interested in expanding that facility? JEANNINE LISITSKI: I believe that we are part of a property where there are vacancies that have the potential to be additional facilities but I would say we would have to seek another facility to accommodate more people. We Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com can't accommodate anymore at our current site.

Is that because it's limited? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Yes. CHAIRMAN JONES: It's a huge facility. JEANNINE LISITSKI: Yes, it is.

The other thing is -- I think that was the question. I'll have to come back. I should have written it down, but I'll come back. CHAIRMAN JONES: The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you both. Ms. Kincade at the end of your testimony you talked about the turn aways. And you said the number does not reflect how many are turn aways that have lost their lives to violence. Has there been any studies done as far as people who first seek help and do not get it for whatever reason they are turned away or whatever kind of -- what happens? Do a lot of them become -- percentage become homeless, do more get abused, do they just go seek other help? Do you know what I'm saying? I'm just trying to figure Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com what happens to these people once they're gone. JEANNINE LISITSKI: We don't have the research to know who called versus, you know, who has been killed that kind of percentage we don't have. But Meghan can talk about what we do when we have to turn someone away.

Okay. Please. CHAIRMAN JONES: Excuse me. So my understanding is that we don't -- as a City, not you, study what causation between this and then crimes and then homicides? JEANNINE LISITSKI: No, we haven't looked at the numbers that we turned away to match that with homicides. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. MEGHAN KINCADE: So when someone calls us we obviously -- and we don't have the capacity some folks will elect to go into the City shelter system because they prefer to stay in Philadelphia. They may have other supports, other important resources, maybe they don't understand the risks that they are facing by staying in the area. So some we refer to the City shelters. We will advocate for folks to go to other counties. We'll Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com keep advocating until somebody can get out of state even if that's a possibility. But I could say to you all obviously that those resources are very minimal, and so it's quite often then that folks go into general city shelters and just keep calling us to try to get in.

Councilman Jones touched on this too. It just seems that there would be -- and I know you folks can do only as much as you can do. But I'm wondering if there's any studies anywhere that shows -- because I think if you put those in real numbers about what happens to these mostly women that can't get initial help, you know, how many either are killed or further abused or whatever happens because I think that sort of puts it in sort of real life, if you will. And I'm just wondering if there's any group that has ever done that that you're aware of. JEANNINE LISITSKI: I think Susan Sorenson from the University of Pennsylvania may be able to answer that question.

I mean in a way it's common sense a lot of bad things would happen. But I'm just wondering if there's been any studies done. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Johnson.

I want to thank you both for your testimony first and foremost. And more importantly for the hard work that you do at the actual shelter. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. I have a couple of small -- a couple of questions I just wanted to ask. One, if you can just go highlight -- in your testimony you asked the question what is the difference between your beds and the beds at general city shelters? Just highlight that prospective once again. And then also you talked about your support services for children right, and the counseling for childern because a lot of times from what I understand when you have a direct trauma of watching their parents or whoever it may be in a situation go through domestic violence, it has to be an impact on the child and that's something I just dealt with most recently. The issue of Section 8 right, being able to maintain your voucher if you want to get out of the City and go to like Florida, North Carolina. If you can elaborate on your encounter with that particular type of situation as well. That was just a recent issue that we had to Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com deal with, the person had a Section 8 voucher clearly wanted to get out of their situation and really was asking us about the actual process to expedite them and to expedite working with PHA from one county to another to an actual whole state. JEANNINE LISITSKI: Issues with PHA I can answer. We work with Community Legal Services, Rachel Garland who is a specialize in domestic violence and public housing, and so she would help us to navigate and get what we need. We also have an recently developed a relationship with PHA and are now at the table meeting regularly to talk about the needs of our families and what we can do to gain more resources. CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilman Johnson touched on this, we actually went another angle with witness protection to work with reciprocity in other counties, jurisdictions and even states to move individuals that were threatened. It's the same process by which reciprocity where I need to request Virginia or Georgia or wherever to allow us to move people for their safety. Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you. Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com I just would like to ask you how long does a victim of domestic violence remain in your shelter? What is the time line? JEANNINE LISITSKI: We are a 90-day shelter.

So what happens within the 90 days? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Well, first of all what we do is we develop a housing plan when someone comes to us. The majority of the families we see who come to the shelter are appropriate referrals to OSH transitional housing, and we will work with them to get them referrals and to get them into those programs by completing online applications. What I would say to you is that 90 days is certainly not enough. Many of our clients are on longer waiting lists as I'm sure, you know -- it's pretty well understood to be impact of what we've been seeing in our economy recently. We also work with our clients to access location funds so their able to actually support rental housing. Then we help them get rent, security deposit, those resources to get them to independent housing if it's an appropriate place for them to be. More and more we see a lot of the people from our shelter going Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com into other emergency shelters just because of the lack of resources that there are.

So at the end of 90 days and their time is up and you work to try to place them in housing and you're not successful, do they still leave and where do they go? What is your follow through? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Our follow through is to evaluate people safety needs. So if there is an extreme safety issue we certainly are flexible with our 90-day deadline, and we will work to get them to another shelter if that's a possibility or a safety plan to get them with family members, other support so that they can then wait to get into a more stable housing situation.

What is your success rate in relocating families to new residences? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Percentage?

You can do percentage. JEANNINE LISITSKI: I would like to say I have a specific percentage, but I would say it's probably about 85 percent successful at this point. Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com MEGHAN KINCADE: We have an after care program so when people are leaving we transition with them into the community and work with them for two years after they leave on stable housing, on independence, on, you know, healing from violent issues.

Have you had any woman to return to your shelter once they moved into the community, and maybe they -- their abuser finds them and they have to come back? JEANNINE LISITSKI: Yes, we certainly had that happen. And, you know, just to speak to that think statistically woman will leave seven to eight times before they leave for the final time. So certainly we do have folks who relocate in the City and their abuser does discover where they are, and we have to assist them in coming back to us and possibly relocating elsewhere.

Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN JONES: For the record, Councilman Daniel O'Brien has joined us. The Chairman will now recognize Councilman Johnson.

com just want to go back to something that's very important, and I think it should be noted for the record. Can you clarify the difference between the service from your emergency shelter versus service from general shelters? The reason why I want this clarified is I would push back and say well, there's shelters, and I would say I'm talking about emergency shelter. So I need for you to clarify that for me for the record, if you don't mind. And then I also would like to get an idea of -- I think the Councilman would appreciate this question. Your relationship with Philadelphia Police Department. A lot of times we get assist to service calls where a person is trying to get out of a situation and they want to make sure that they do a report, and they make a phone call regarding a boyfriend that may be intimidating, terrorizing but are those reports actually followed up on. Because a lot of times we usually hear of such reports and then something actually happens to them when it could have been an intervention early on. So I kind of want to get an idea of how you work the contacts with the Philadelphia Police Department or the District Attorney office as well. com emergency shelter support system and general shelters in the City. MEGHAN KINCADE: I'll speak to that and then Jeannine can speak a little bit more about our work with the police. So general city shelter locations are well known to the public, so the first very obvious difference is that our shelter is a confidential location. And then as I highlighted in my testimony all of our staff are trained advocates. Training in understanding the needs of the family who has experienced violence is crucial to be effective with those families. We have trained behavioral staff. We have trained security staff. We have trained highlight counselors, trained case managers both children and adults. We have trained early intervention child care workers. We have trained after school staff. All of these staff understand how to safety plan with the family, understand the affect of violence on the families ability to function, and to provide what is -- I'm really pleased that Councilman Greenlee recognized a certain type of environment that's necessary to help these families heal. com have to create and we do that quite well in our shelter. I would say that the training is really necessary and it's being able to build those relationships with our clients that's going to be protective of their children. And certainly a lot of encouragement in terms of not returning to those relationships. It comes down to relationships and it comes down to training, and that's really, really, really important. JEANNINE LISITSKI: And just to underscore the kind of trauma informed care that we provide. If somebody is going into a regular emergency shelter, you know, they're not going to experience that. And I don't have studies, but I would think that they would be more likely not to be successful in terms of leaving that violent relationship because of -- what we do is we establish safety with people, and we help people to believe that safety can exist, you know. Meghan spoke about that earlier. But I also wanted to speak to the issue of relationship with police. We work very closely with the domestic violence law enforcement committee of Philadelphia, and Carol Tracy is going to speak more about that shortly. com But we created a program where we get copies -- our legal center get copies of 115,000 police reports each year, and we screen those and what we're doing is we're calling back the highest risk victims. So that's about 6,000 a year that we're calling back. And so far -- CHAIRMAN JONES: How do you determine high risk? JEANNINE LISITSKI: We pull certain flags like strangulation, use of a weapon, aggravated assault. So we, you know, just pull certain indicators that we know will create a higher risk. CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilman Johnson will have a follow-up question to add.

How many are -- of these incidents are committed with a fire arm? JEANNINE LISITSKI: You know, I don't -- I can't recall that. I can get you that data. CHAIRMAN JONES: Please. If you can get that for the Committee. com and if there is a triangulation of what happens in domestic abuse with low bail and then they get, you know, we want take a look at that. JEANNINE LISITSKI: Well, we do know that the majority of domestic homicides occur with a fire arm, and Nicole Lindemyer from the state can speak to that in more detail as well. CHAIRMAN JONES: So noted. JEANNINE LISITSKI: So we work very -- this has been wonderful to be able to do this work and to reach victims who would not generally be calling us and to interview. Earlier we have --

Before you know -- JEANNINE LISITSKI: Yes, before they're at the shelter. And this seems to be a group that doesn't really know a lot about the resources available, that's what we're getting voluntarily from talking to the victims. They didn't know that Women Against Abuse was there, they didn't know the services we had. And we're contacting about two-thirds of this high risk victims. We try to call them three times.

My question Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com one being is if you could just give an update of course the nuts and bolts of this budget fund. We know that the City of Philadelphia and pretty much other surrounding counties throughout the state, even some counties of Northeast Pennsylvania when it comes to administration they lock grants for Women Against Abuse, and we understand that they're going to have certain services that they provide from the City standpoint. So one of the reasons where we're at budget wise -- who do you lease your building from?

I wouldn't talk about that on the record. JEANNINE LISITSKI: The lease actually --

I wouldn't talk about that on the record.

Just try to elaborate on the budge and the impact that would be great. And also would you just give me an idea of the age of teens or adults. Because you also referenced teen dating and domestic violence as well. JEANNINE LISITSKI: Okay. So in terms of the budget back in fiscal year '09, we Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com received a $300,000 budge cut from Office of Supportive Housing. At that time we had to make a lot of cuts from organizations. So right now we operate on a very lean staff. We can't -- you know, we cannot make any further cuts without having to reduce beds in our shelter. So we're at the point if we have to sustain further cuts we're going to have to close a wing because we're not going to be able to staff it to the level that it needs to be to be successful. So that's where we are with the budget. There are many state organizations that impact us, the Home Assistance Program, The Human Services Development Fund, County Child and Welfare. We have a small contract with Behavioral Health, and of course the Domestic Violence Alliance. So that percent cut would be a huge impact, and we may 18 have to reduce the number of shelter beds that we 19 have. Thank you very much. 20

First, I'd like to ask the Chair if he could ask the stenographer to strike from the record the location of the program. CHAIRMAN JONES: The Councilman did ask that it be stricken, even the recording on Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com the future tapes of this. We may not be able to do it live, but on the public property television if there is a way to bleep that out we'd like to get that done for safety purposes.

I have some more questions. Let me just ask -- Ms. Kincade you talked about the -- your services that you provide, and you have trained behavioral staff, adult advocates. How large is your staff? How many of them are paid by you and how many of them are contractors? MEGHAN KINCADE: We have a total of I believe 47 at the shelter. And the contracted off the top of my head I only think it's a handful or a couple of people.

What kind of services do you contract out? MEGHAN KINCADE: There's the therapists that works clinical with our children's program, the after school program. And the other I believe is a therapist as well. And I believe we've had a tempt case manager at one point this year.

How diverse is your staff? MEGHAN KINCADE: Extremely, I'd Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com like to say. Yes, very diverse. In terms of the percentage or breakdown of numbers I can't really speak to that number.

Can you get that and send it to the Chairman? MEGHAN KINCADE: Yes, we can.

Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you Councilwoman. If there are no other question from this Committee for this Panel, I'd like to call the first Panel and ask them to submit their testimony. Thank you so very much for your time.

Dainette Mintz and Al B. Quarles. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you for coming. State your name for the record and begin your testimony. DAINETTE MINTZ: My name is Dainette Mintz, I'm the director of the Office of Supportive Housing. Good morning Committee, Chairperson Jones, Councilman Johnson and distinguished members of the Public Safety Committee. com Housing. The mission of OSH is to plan and coordinate Philadelphia's response to homelessness and the administration of Riverview Home providing housing to low income, elderly and disable persons. Our goals are to assist homeless persons, individuals and families to achieve greater self-sufficiency and long-term housing. I appreciate the opportunity to present testimony at a today's Council hearing on the availability of emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence. The Office of Supportive Housing Budget for fiscal year '12, our budget is $95,962,391. The fiscal year '12 budget includes an allocation of $38,466,253 in general funds, which is 40 percent of our budget, and $57,496,138 in grant funds, that makes up 60 percent. A breakdown of the grant funds is $8,987,010, that's nine percent from the State. And $47,914,118 which is 50 percent of grant funds which are federal funds. Since fiscal year '08, OSH has absorbed and overall budget reduction of $3,888,529, that's four percent. Between fiscal year '09 and fiscal year '12, the state reduction to the OSH funding was $4,396,785, that's 40 percent. com an additional $2 million in general funds to the OSH budget. Based upon the Governors proposed fiscal year '13 budget, OSH state funding would be further reduced by $645,775, percent. 5 Homeless housing need for single female 6 and family households. The primary reasons for 7 family and single female homelessness are poverty, 8 lack of available affordable housing, eviction from 9 the home of a family or friend, domestic violence 10 and by history or diagnosis of a behavioral health 11 disability. Families and single women experiencing 12 any of the above factors turn to the City's 13 emergency housing system daily to immediately 14 address their housing needs. 15 Emergency shelter represents a place of 16 safety and an access point where homeless women and 17 children who are the victims of violence can be 18 connected to services to help them cope with trauma 19 and begin to rebuild their lives. Unfortunately, 20 Philadelphia is among the cities nationally; New York, Miami, San Francisco, New Orleans and Portland just to name a few, that has experienced a consistent increase in the demand for emergency housing by homeless families. S. com Housing and Urban Development, HUD, to complete a point in time count of homeless individuals annually every January. With the help of our providers we gather information about the number of people who are homeless on the streets and in emergency housing and in transitional housing on a single winter night. In 2010, the number of households experiencing domestic violence was 438. The count in 2011 was 477 a one percent increase. On that same night in 2011, there were also other increased homeless subpopulations. Eighteen percent of family households heads and 41 percent of single individuals had a serious mental illness, a homeless subpopulation that increased 29 percent overall since 2010. In addition, of the total number of homeless people four percent reported physical disabilities, three percent were veterans, two percent were HIV positive, and nearly 85 percent were unemployed. Because OSH is expected to serve as many homeless people who request shelter as we can within our capacity to do so, our emergency housing system primarily consists of beds that can be utilized by various populations. com It is also important to note that OSH has experienced a 339 percent increase in overall demand for a family which house between fiscal year '08 and fiscal year '11.

In 2008, 1,236 households signed in at our Family Intake Center versus 5,422 households in 2011. Homeless housing capacity for a single female and family households. OSH has a total of 230 single family beds and 1,490 emergency housing family shelter beds. The 1,490 emergency housing bed count includes an additional 81 beds added this fall, fiscal year '12, as a result of the increase in homeless family housing demand. Homeless female and family households are placed into emergency housing through a centralized shelter intake process that authorize daily placement into currently vacant shelter beds. All emergency housing programs for families and single women are operated by city contracted non-profit organizations at 19 locations citywide. The 1,490 family shelter bed capacity includes the 100 Women Against Abuse beds funded by the City solely for victims of domestic violence. com providers, WAA assists callers and takes direct referrals in addition to referrals from the City's family intake process. In an effort to meet the need for housing for domestic violence victims thus far during fiscal year '12, OSH has used 520 or 37 percent of the 1,390 shelter beds not designated for families experiencing domestic violence. And 104 or 45 percent of the 230 non-designated single female shelter beds for female victims of domestic violence. Although we have just 100 beds solely dedicated to victims, six percent of the emergency housing inventory, we serve far more households affected by domestic violence in the emergency housing system at large. And OSH like WAA has experienced the painful reality of being unable to accommodate all who request shelter. OSH general family shelters experienced 17 percent unmet demand for emergency housing in the one year period ending September 30, 2011. This means that 795 single female and family households were asked to make their own -- CHAIRMAN JONES: Would you repeat that again. DAINETTE MINTZ: Sure. com period of September 30, 2011, OSH general family providers, non-domestic violence providers experienced a percent unmet demand for emergency 4 housing in a one year period. That correlates to 5 795 single female and family households who were 6 asked to make their own arrangements for housing due 7 to a lack of available beds and placed on a waiting 8 list. Only 25 percent returned for shelter 9 placement. 10 Among OSH's housing strategies to address 11 the increased demand has been the utilization of the 12 City's partnership with the Philadelphia Housing 13 Authority. PHA has provided 500 housing 14 opportunities annually since fiscal year '08, with 15 300 dedicated to assist families in moving out of 16 emergency or transitional housing and into 17 affordable housing. OSH provides case management to help tenants be successful after they move in. To date, 775 families have moved and 98 percent have retained their PHA housing. com than 3,000 households. Through the rapid rehousing component of the program, OSH provided assistance to move 1,300 households out of shelter or transitional housing into their own homes since late 2009. Additional assistance that OSH provides to Domestic Violence Supports. Emergency housing providers serve victims with training and support from OSH. OSH, Women Against Abuse and other victim services organizations plan to provide more than 500 emergency and transitional housing provider staff with training on the dynamics of domestic violence in the coming year to increase their ability to respond effectively to victims. Representatives from every OSH funded family emergency and transitional housing program have completed Dr. Sandra Bloom's five-day training in the sanctuary model of trauma informed care and are implementing agency wide processes to respond compassionately to people who have experienced trauma. OSH has invested substantially in improving Philadelphia's response to domestic violence victims.

OSH led the effort to double the number of beds at WAA from 50 to 100. com we also fund the operation costs. 212 million. OSH advocated for a single citywide hotline for domestic violence and provided funding to WAA so the victim service provider coalition could combine their efforts. In addition, to shelter and hotline funding, OSH provides $274,000 annually for WAA's transitional housing program Sojourner House which provides units of housing for victims and their 11 families. 2 million for rehabilitation and expansion of Sojourner House by three units. OSH served as grantee for the federal department of justice office on violence against women arrest grant, and was awarded over $3 million to increase collaboration between law enforcement and victim service organizations in Philadelphia. The Department of Behavioral Health provided a two year $240,000 community coalition grant to the St. Elizabeth Wellness Coalition. com health in the areas of prevention and early intervention for children, youth and families in the Diamond Street area. A major focus is screening for trauma and domestic violence. The Department of Human Services supports victim services organizations serving individuals and families experiencing domestic violence. Services include counseling, support groups, community education, legal advocacy and residential programs. DHS provides a total of $525,000 for services to assist victims of domestic violence. In conclusion, as OSH is the sole city agency chared with providing shelter for all who are homeless it is critical that our program be flexible enough to accommodate all who need them. OSH has been charged to serve all who are driven to shelter by all the societal issues of poverty, lack of affordable housing, inadequate income, behavioral health issues and domestic violence. I would be happy to answer any questions the Committee may have. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. For the record, we were talking about this a little bit, and I've had the opportunity for the last four years to hear your testimony on a number of budget cycles. com And I have had the opportunity with stimulus fund or emergency general shelter, and it -- when it comes to being a public servant your name should be next to it in the webster definition. A true professional and credit to the city as a whole. That's how I feel about you -- DAINETTE MINTZ: Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: So I'm going to say it for the record. Under sort -- you have a tough job. You have a thankless job. You have a -- people probably thank you, but not enough. And I have a couple -- I mean your testimony let's start with the fact that you said -- and I had to ask you to repeat it twice. That 70 percent of the demand was unmet. And then you went on to say to that they were asked to seek their own rescue -- or shelter and of that only percent came back. Can you 18 elaborate on that and tell me about what happens 19 there. 20 DAINETTE MINTZ: Sure. We have 21 experienced prior to the last two years an increase. 22 In early spring, from late May to June, we seen an 23 increase in families coming in. com their situation at the moment. And typically is when they're living with other family members. So we've grown to expect that there will be a spike up during that period of the year, and we experienced that consistently. CHAIRMAN JONES: Victims of domestic violence. DAINETTE MINTZ: Some of them may be, yes. And when we do not have a vacant shelter bed we ask them if they can stay where they stayed the night before. And if they say that they can we verify that by a telephone conversation with whoever the family member was. We provide them with transportation to return, and we ask them if they would like to be on our waiting list. Some say yes, some say they will just come back and take their chances.

And what we were trying to demonstrate was the number of people who indicate they are willing to make their own arrangements or able to make their own arrangements and also go on our waiting list, only percent of them return for shelter beds. 22 CHAIRMAN JONES: My son works 23 for emergency protection over at CJC at night. com go home, if they feel threatened and in danger? DAINETTE MINTZ: If they cannot go home depending upon the circumstance we are placing and have placed families in hotels until we have shelter vacancy. But even then we have a limited of how many placements we can make just by limitation of our budget. I only have enough funding to be able to fund enough beds, so we try to limit that placement of families to hotels either for families who are domestic violence, families who have particular vulnerability a very young infant. And actually we also use it when we have very large families, if we have a household where there are 8, 10 children. CHAIRMAN JONES: But you need funds to have resources. DAINETTE MINTZ: Yes. CHAIRMAN JONES: Out of 795 single female head of households have been turned away, you said percent return the next day. What 21 happened to the 75 percent of them? com shelter. One of the difficulties of this job is really being able to assess whether someone is truly homeless or not, whether they had a falling out the night before and they come to our intake center asking for placement because they just don't want to be where they were before. Our belief is that that statistic indicates that in the some of the cases there are other options other than the shelter system. CHAIRMAN JONES: Is one of those options returning to their abuser? DAINETTE MINTZ: One of the options may be that family go back home to their abuser. We do not have anyone who have indicated to us when we ask them if they can make their arrangement if they're returning to their abuser. Typically they identifying mom, sister, some other family member who can put them up. What I can't speak to is what happens if they are there for three days, a week or what decision they make after that have gone to that particular placement. CHAIRMAN JONES: Is there a check in a box that says there is refugee from violence, and is there a three-day follow up to that 75 percent? com DAINETTE MINTZ: When women come into our intake center asking for placement they disclose whether or not there's domestic violence, some do, some don't. We then make note of it and that's how we divide our data, the number of domestic violence folks who are in our system. CHAIRMAN JONES: Are they given any priority? DAINETTE MINTZ: And they are attempted to be a priority. The difficulty is that we also have the other households who are coming in who are also indicating that they have no place to go as well. So part of it has been trying to address the needs on a as well basis. Folks come in -- our intake center is open from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon. We then close and then one of our contract provided us the extra house of intake for the afternoon and evening. It's certainly much more difficult for those families to be placed who are coming in after hours because by then we've already filled whatever vacancies we had for that given night. Sometimes if we're able to squeeze folks in, we do that. com can put cots to place people who desperately are in need of housing, and we do that very often. And then try to replace them as quickly as we can because we know that's just not a suitable placement. CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilman Greenlee and then Councilman Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. DAINETTE MINTZ: Good morning.

Thank you for all you do. One of the most difficult jobs in the city. Just on -- just so I'm clear, I don't know if you stated it. As far as the victims of domestic violence and not those 100 beds you were talking about. What -- and I know you have a general population to deal with. Is there any service s -- the first Panel talked about service providers. What are you able to do or are you able to provide any of that type of service while you're -- in general. DAINETTE MINTZ: Sure. In our family emergency housing facilities as in Women Against Abuse, families receive expansion. We actually protected family shelters when -- as I Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com believe Women Against Abuse referenced the fiscal year '09, our budget was cut as the City was dealing with the economical recession, and we asked the majority of our emergency housing providers to either eliminate in some cases single facilities, to eliminate their case management, and the family providers we ask them if they can reduce the case management. But one maintained all of their beds but reduced case management, because our intention was to try to protect and not lose any emergency house beds that we had. As a result of that, one of the areas we've been able to maintain some form of case management is at our family shelters. And case management is a key service that helps to deal with issues of trauma, helps to deal with family needing to be connected to services, helps to navigate the families process to other housing. In addition to that, as I indicated in my testimony all of our providers have received sanctuary trauma training which helps the not only the case managers, but the intake staff to recognize when someone is exhibiting the signs of trauma. And in addition, we have and already been in the planning process with Women Against Abuse and the Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com other domestic violence providers to provide some additional support and training to all of our, quote, non-domestic violence shelter operators. Because the reality is that we do have domestic violence victims who are residing in the shelters, and we want to get them as best we can the support they need.

And I know a lot of this is the cuts, and we're going to talk about more of that in our hearing tomorrow. The general cuts of your budget, you know, under human services is unbelievable in my opinion. Obviously, these folks are in Harrisburg, not Philadelphia, but the other folks live in a different world but -- or don't care, I'll add that. But just on the numbers you put in here on , just so I'm clear you said 104 or 45 percent of the 230 non-designated single female shelter beds for female victims of domestic violence. Now, just so I'm clear, that's the percentage of domestic violence victims that are -- DAINETTE MINTZ: That are occupying those beds, yes.

I mean -- and I know this just isn't your call, but it seems Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com to me that at least one other kind of shelter like the one that we discussed earlier wouldn't that make sense to have another building that can concentrate on that type of population in a perfect world. DAINETTE MINTZ: In a perfect world I would say that there defintely is a need for more housing. Part of the concern that I have about increasing emergency housing is that once people come into emergency housing there's no place for them to go. So my strategy has been instead of trying to expand the supply of emergency housing, if we had additional resources, yes, I think there should be some attention paid to the front door to trying provide some immediate response. But I would always have a case for the bulk of that funding going towards long-term housing. Because part of our large challenge is that for all of the folks who are placed in emergency housing we're also charged for helping them to move out of emergency housing. And so by increasing my emergency house supply by another 300 beds, we then have another 300 families that are vying for the same inadequate amount of affordable housing that -- I mean so we've been attempting to advocate for more long-term housing, that's the Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com national trend. HUD who is at this point our largest federal provider of funding has identified that as the best practice of the philosophy. They are holding us to it, they're watching the number of emergency housing beds we have as compared to transitional housing, as compared to permanent housing. We're actually penalized in our competitive application to them every year. We don't have a higher emphasis on creating more long-term housing than we have emergency housing. And so part of what we tried to do was to utilize as I indicated our relationships with longer term housing providers through PHA, through using the recovery grant that for the first time provided a rapidly house component to people who are already in shelter or transitional housing and move them into long-term housing. Ultimately domestic violence victims if they are able to live independently they will also need affordable housing placement. And my advocacy has been I would have rather provided them with more long-term housing not just have them come to the shelter system to escape abuse and then have no 25 place else to go. After that they still may chose Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com to go back to inappropriate housing situation if we're not able to provide them with support to move to long-term housing.

The reason I raise that is obviously you heard these figures before. Ms. Lisitski when she testified talked about the beds per 100,000 people. And obviously we're I would say fairly significant with regard to some of our surrounding cities, and that's kind of like why I raised that. DAINETTE MINTZ: I understand completely and I would say on that point that I don't in any way negate that fact, that is an accurate assessment. One of the things that has been difficult for us is the creation of more homeless housing period. And the issues that impact that notwithstanding the resources that's needed to create this and other factors as well. And I would also say that part of our issue has been that whenever we are providing any kind of funded housing opportunity our charge has been to make that available on a competitive basis, so whomever can be able to in a ground sort of way able to designate one provider as the operator. There certainly was a conscious decision Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com on the part of the previous administration to expand domestic violence beds that Women Against Abuse was operating. They operate a 50-bed facility at the time, and the City increased it to 100 they consolidated that into the new facility that the City currently funds.

Again, I just -- I don't want to belabor the point, but it seems that there's enough percentage of domestic violence victims that it seems -- and again, I know you have a lot of things to consider, so I'm not trying to be critical here, I'm just kind of throwing out the idea that it does seem like we're still not servicing the people that are surrounding cities do in percentages. That's troubling I guess is the best way to say that. And I'm not criticizing you directly, I'm just saying -- DAINETTE MINTZ: I understand.

I'm just throwing it out there it just doesn't seem to make sense why that -- Washington, for example, seems to deal with double, you know, what we do. And, you know -- and I'm not -- I'm talking about the problem more than giving the answer, but I just -- that's certainly concerning and it's very good that they Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com increased from 50 to 100, but that just means we were so bad before or so far behind and now we're just less bad I guess. So I don't know. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN JONES: The Chairman recognize Councilman Johnson.

I'd like to thank you for your thorough presentation. It was very thorough and it actually spells out a lot of key questions that I've had. So I do thank you for taking the time out of your schedule and detailing this information. A couple of things I just want to you to clarify. Just one, you said the federal penalize us as part of our commitment to provide long-term housing as a part of the actual strategy you're dealing with, particularly homelessness in general. But I'm zeroing in on also individuals who are victims of domestic violence. So when the federal look is it like a broad stroke where they're just saying homelessness is homelessness across the board or in this particular case is domestic violence begin targeted as a particularly area. DAINETTE MINTZ: The federal continued care recognizes that there are very subpopulations and domestic violence certainly is Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com acknowledged as one of them. With that said, the overall strategy is increase more long-term housing for all of the homeless so that in fact, you're not putting a band-aid on their homelessness by having them in a shelter for either the 90-day period or in our case when you come into a family funded shelter, we have shelter residents who are in our facilities six months to a year, if not longer. And their there longer because we don't have enough adequate long-term housing options to move them into. And our sense is that for some households coming into shelter is detrimental to the families self-sufficiency because you then have a programmed environment where someone is saying to the mom have you gotten your kids up. Have they gone to school. Did they get their breakfast. Did you connect them to this. Did you connect them to that. And for very young moms in particular who are struggling with life skills they become very depended on someone prodding them. And so that their even more ill-prepared to live independently. So part of our strategy has been as much as possible with the recovery grant trying to prevent households from ever experiencing homelessness in the first place. And that's how we Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com try to deal with someone who says they're asking for shelter because they're delinquent in their rent. So we try to help mediate and elevate the delinquency by establishing an arrangement with the landlord. We try to get them current with their rent, but also we use that opportunity to counsel them on budgeting and et cetera, et cetera. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you Counselor. The chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you very much. Let's go back to the statistics in terms of the other cities, and the number of beds available ratio to their population. This is from the other young lady testimony, Ms. Lisitski. Would you -- based upon how you described your responsibility in trying to accommodate all families not just victims of domestic violence, that would have some impact on your total number of beds that -- what percentage of beds we have in Philadelphia maybe they have a larger homeless population totally. DAINETTE MINTZ: I think that's true. And part of what I try to demonstrate was that we have a large percentage of domestic violence households that are occupying our generic homeless Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com capacity. We have also had to turn away non-domestic violence households because of this increase in families homelessness. And I would imagine we will hear more testimony that talks about the overall demand for housing, and how there are very interest advocates in our ability to be able to assist all of those families in addition to those in domestic violence. What I was hoping to demonstrate was that we're aware of the particular needs of domestic violence victims and that's represented by the fact that they occupy a large percentage of those generic shelter beds. And if we were to dedicate those beds that are actually occupied today to domestic violence, that would be that same number of general homeless families that we would be able to assist.

Do you get Section 8 certificates -- DAINETTE MINTZ: We receive --

-- to provide to the families. DAINETTE MINTZ: No. What we have is a partnership with PHA where they provide us 300 housing opportunities a year. When we started the partnership it was for placing PHA conventional Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com assisting housing. We've been working with them in the last couple of months to ask because there's been so little turn over in the general population that we weren't able to actually achieve that number of conventional units available to us. If we could have some opportunity for some vouchers and they're working with us to try make that available so we could have a combination of conventional and subsidized opportunities for families. But to date we have not had that opportunity.

Thank you very much for you're doing a great job. CHAIRMAN JONES: The Chairman recognizes Councilman Johnson.

Just one last thing for the record. I just -- I'm going to have my staff look into this, because what I'm getting out of your testimony is two-fold. Of course on the front end Philadelphia lacks regarding available beds for emergency shelter for individuals suffering from domestic violence, so that's where my focus is. Your job in general is homelessness in general, but the need for long-term housing for individuals who are coming out of emergency shelter situations. com And I look at our problem with abandoned housing throughout the City of Philadelphia, and as a Councilman I'm always dealing with developers who want to develop on the private side. I'm kind of like looking at, you know, we give away a lot of public property to developers why not are we thinking out of the box in terms of an incentive to developers to create this type of housing, because it is the tax payers who own that land that developers actually come to us to build long-term. So that's where my head is going at, the need for long-term housing. So that's pretty much what I wanted to say for the record. CHAIRMAN JONES: You can tell the seriousness of this situation for the Public Safety and policy. Councilman, would you like to have some words. Thank you. If there are no other questions we're going to go to our next Panel. Will the Clerk please introduce the third Panel. Where is she? Okay. She's not here. Ms. Renee Norris-Jones and Ms. Lisa Brown will you approach the witness table. And we're going add Angelita Dorsey. Can you state your name for the record. com RENEE NORRIS-JONES: Sure. My name is Renee Norris-Jones. CHAIRMAN JONES: State your name for the record. LISA BROWN: Good morning. My name is Lisa Brown. ANGELITA DORSEY: Good morning. My name is Angel Dorsey. CHAIRMAN JONES: Would you please give us your testimony. RENEE NORRIS-JONES: Sure. My name is Renee Norris-Jones, and I'm a survivor of domestic violence. I always describe myself as a domestic violence survivor because it is a part of who I am, and I tell my story walking. I do it for myself as therapy. I do it to educate folks as yourselves, and I do it for holding out hope for current victims of domestic violence. My story span seven years and I'm going to try to keep that to five minutes. W, a prisoner of war because that's what it was. Women Against Abuse saved me. com see where Women Against Abuse has come. I know for myself my I am very lucky to be alive. My journey cross the path with Women Against Abuse when it was still a new, fresh organization. There was no 5 PSA's, there was no police protection. In my own family there are seven kids, I am number six. So I had five older sisters, my older sisters are twenty years older than I am. So when I was going through this I was and years 10 old. I reached out to each one of them and was 11 basically told it's okay. I was invited to dinner. 12 I was staying in a shelter when I left. For them to 13 say, you know, come over to dinner I know you're 14 staying in a shelter. I get there and my abuser, my 15 ex-husband called them and was crying. He cried and 16 they said look he's sorry. I went to my father who 17 I had on a pedestal and said I don't know what to 18 do. His words to me were, what did you think marriage was. Women Against Abuse was home for me. I felt safe and I knew I wasn't alone. When you walked through those doors you were asked how can we help you. What do you need. You were never told not to go back, no one talked bad about the situation. com help, what can we do. In the seven years I was in the relationship I've had more black eyes than I can even count. I've had broken bones, broken noses. I've had dislocated hip bones, fracture cheek bones. I've had hot grease poured on my, I was raped and tortured. I lost two children that I gave up for adoption because I couldn't protect them. I had a gun -- I slept with a gun to my temple because he was afraid I was going to leave him again.

And then folks asked me why would you stay. To society it was okay, just like incest was, shh you couldn't talk about it. And to go where, even if I left, where was I going to go. Women against abuse they rescued me because I was ashamed a being a victim of domestic violence. The stigma is the same as a rape victim after being raped. So you go into a shelter for domestic violence, there is no shame, you were not alone this was a family. So I went from a very sheltered, introverted girl to an assured person who has a voice today. I said never again and I went from a high school drop out to a Phd candidate today. com have come a long way. The milestones that I see -- just a little thing. I was somewhere a few weeks ago and was sitting in an office reading something because I was bored, and it was something on or it was a few lines that said if you are a 6 victim of domestic violence there are initiatives 7 and things that we can do to help you. In my time 8 this is all, it was unheard of. To be sitting here 9 today in this room to know that folks want to do 10 something it's just unbelievable, just listening to 11 testimony heals my heart. 12 To go back to 2012. It amazes me that in 13 2012, we have to ask for additional beds so that the 14 City the size of Philadelphia is not in line with 15 other cities, it's mind boggling to me with so many 16 milestones and to look at the reality of where we 17 are. 18 In closing, I'm going to give you a parable of my life as a domestic violence victim. And I take it back to that slave, that period of American History when African Americans were slaves, and I related myself to that slave. I know what it feels like to want to leave. I don't know where I first heard about Women Against Abuse, but I'm grateful they were there. com to reach out to this place that you don't know what they're going to offer you. And to have the courage with very few possessions, and to leave the house with no cell phone to go find a pay phone, hopefully it was working. You couldn't stand out on a major corner, and you called and hoped, and you prayed that there was room, and there wasn't. He knows that you're gone by now that's what it goes back to. And maybe they say that the Salvation Army can put you up for tonight. Where are you going to go tomorrow. I spent probably three weeks in a place called Mercy Hospice at 12th and Sansom, it's where they put me. I couldn't go back to the shelter because now I'm safe. And I stayed in a room for about three weeks with a bed and a window, and that's where I stayed. There's no one to say let's help you get this, it's a resource here. Let's help you get this, and it kept you up. Women Against Abuse was Harriet Tubman on that underground railroad. We all know that the most dangerous time for a women is when she's planning to leave or left. My sister found that out in 2000. com the counties because this one was full, she had left her husband. And at some point in that period of time when she tried to get her belongings he shot her and killed himself. I had to tell my neice, her daughter, that her mother was gone. In 1984, my ex-husband went to jail for his brutal acts against women, but not for what did to me. He went to jail because he chopped up his mother with an axe. So imagine my journey. Just thinking about that send chills down my spine. Ladies and gentlemen my name is Renee Norris-Jones and I am a survivor of domestic violence. I sit before you today to urge you to please preserve the funding for domestic violence services, especially emergency shelter that exist as a critical safety net for survivors, so that other women such as myself can one day sit before a group of people and say that they too are alive because of Women Against Abuse. Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you for sharing your testimony. We're going to hear from all of the panelist, and then open up for questions and answers. If you can state your name again for the record.

com Brown, and I'm here today kind of in a two-fold role. First, as a survivor, but also as a representative of Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Housing Network. I guess I'm more of a story teller, so I'll just go into kind of what my story had been. My first conscious memory is of my mother being beaten while I sat in a high chair, and throughout my life I always said that I would never allow a man to beat me or treat me that way. I didn't realize that domestic violence could take many forms, and I didn't consider myself abused because I was not a woman with bruises and black eyes. However, there was a time in my life that I thought death would have been better than trying to exist with my live-in boyfriend. He needed to exert power and control, and ultimately that resulted in my repeated rape at his hands. There was no amount of begging and pleading that would make him stop, no amount of tears that would affect him. I would find myself being afraid when nightfall would come because that would mean that it might be another night of forced sex, and listening to him smile and laugh about how good it made him feel. com Many nights I would get sick to my stomach afterward or if I were really lucky, I could roll over and cry myself to sleep. But much like a man who engages in hitting, he would be very apologetic the next day. He would buy gifts, he make promises only to repeat the behavior night after night. During the last couple of months before I left, I didn't sleep very much. I would drink large amounts of caffeine during the day so I could stay awake, and I would sit up late at night in a zombie like state. My spirit, my mind and my body were sick, and my condition was terminal. I didn't think I could make it on my own. I had three children, no 15 money, no resources and I though what he wanted, and my life with him was bigger and mattered more than my own happiness. I knew I was in trouble when I could feel hate setting in. It manifested itself in me as depression, and I felt in my heart that one of us was going to die if I stayed there. One day, I'm not sure how, I ran. I packed only the clothes my children and I had, and I left. We bounced around a few places but we were not making progress. com barely take care of us. Something had to give. I began to call shelters and prayerfully there was an organization that had a spot for my children and I. And slowly, slowly brick by brick, piece by piece God began to help me put our lives back together. Domestic violence shelters are crucial not only because these families and victims need a safe place to live and heal, but they need the ability to rebuild from the foundation up at a place that will holistically help them regain their lives and start their futures. If it were not for a phone call telling me to come in, I would have ended my life. It's just that simple. Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you for your testimony. ANGELITA DORSEY: Good morning. My name is Angel Dorsey. I come before you as a survivor of domestic violence to share some of my personal experiences concerning the lack of domestic violence shelters in Philadelphia, and the urgent need to rectify this problem. When I finally got tired of walking on eggshells because I never knew what was going to set off my abuser. com bad I started pulling my eyelashes out. When my children were getting older and it was getting more difficult to keep them from witnessing the abuse, although they knew all along, I was too involved in my own abuse to realize. I finally gathered up the courage to leave. I didn't know where I was going especially since I was in an area of Philadelphia I was not familiar with. My abuser was very calculating he figured out how to get away from everybody, and I had no family or friends around. At that time, however, someone told me about a domestic violence shelter and gave me a phone number to call. I call it but there was no room for me and my children.

I started to cry and told them I did not want to go back, so they suggested that I try a shelter for women and children run by the Salvation Army. They took me in and I felt so relieved. I didn't have much but I had peace of mind and that was priceless. Unfortunately, after a couple of weeks my children came down with the chicken pox, and I was told I had to leave the shelter. This was devastating because there was no 24 other place for me to go, and with my children being sick I had no choice but to go back to my abuser. com Now, I want you to completely understand why that was detrimental. It is obvious that going back meant that the abuse would start all over again, and the peace of mind I had for a moment was gone. But it also made me believe that there was no 6 hope for me, I was going to have to be a prisoner of abuse for the rest of my life. After finally getting the courage to say I am going to take my children and leave only to have to go back was almost as bad as calling the police for help knowing that that would not be helpful at all. People always wonder why victims of domestic violence don't just leave well, no place to go is one reason, calling the police only made it worse for you it certainly didn't help you, and most importantly the victim can lose their life. I don't just know about this from statistics or the news I know because I have friends who lost loved ones due to domestic violence, and I was very close to being on that list. Leaving an abusive relationship is a very dangerous endeavor. When I told the man I was married to that I wanted him to leave he got a rifle and shot it at me at point blank range. com before you. The bullet just missed me, it went through my bedroom wall continuing through the bedroom of my three youngest children who praise God was also not struck by the bullet. He was going to kill us all, I saw it in his eyes. I knew I had to calm him down, so I told him that he didn't have to go anywhere that we could work things out. I had to pacify him and make him believe everything was okay but inside I was terrified. I got away a year later. I was in that relationship for ten years. I finally got away the last time. I just left and I went into the system, not a system. I rented a house. I didn't have money like that, but I rented a house and it took all my paycheck, so I kind of didn't eat for I don't know how long, but I didn't eat I got really skinny. But I didn't eat, but it was okay. I was -- I had a peace of mind. I thought I would never find myself in that situation again, and ended up marrying someone else who I thought cared about me, and it was a different kind of abuse. He didn't physically hit me, strangle me or play russian roulette like the other one did. He didn't throw a knife in my face or anything like that. com just that simple. I left again, not knowing where I was going, and called once again for a place for me and my children. A friend of mine who was living in a one bedroom, one floor house of her own let me and my children come stay with her. We slept on cots or whatever until we could get it back together and find a place to go. But I must let you know that there is an urgent need for domestic violence shelters. I commend Women Against Abuse. At that time like Renee was saying I didn't know the place existed. And back then because it was ten years ago, before they came up with all these wonderful services, so I was on my own. But the fact that they are here and at this hearing you need to help them. You need to create more beds because 100 beds is not enough. If we continue to turn away these women they are going to end up dead. I have a friend who died, a friend I knew I came out -- I think go to preschool together, and she told me she said I'm leaving Angel, I'm going, I'm moving out of state. I'm getting out of here. The next morning I found out she was killed by her abuser in front of her children in the lot next to the house where I lived.

com I had another friend that I went to school with whose sister was killed after she left. After she left on her way to work he killed her. I have another friend -- these are not statistics, these are people that I knew. I'm not a statistic, I'm a face of a person who was being turned away, but praise God I'm still here. I don't -- they're not statistics they were real people with real children they are -- who no longer have parents and will grow up without parents. I'm not following this, I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN JONES: It's all right. ANGELITA DORSEY: If you do not open more domestic violence shelters in Philadelphia more and more victims of domestic violence will die. More and more children will be traumatized. My children were traumatized and to this day they have certain issues because they witnessed me get beat so much that it affects them. There are millions of traumatized children in this city. I'm just here asking -- I'm begging that you help. CHAIRMAN JONES: I want to first say thank you for your encouragement and to share your stories of various examples for the record. com was cringing up here because I had a little kid flashback as to feeling helpless as my mother went through her trauma. My dad is a great guy 99 percent of the time until the time when he wasn't. I had that feeling of helplessness that kid as his role model and his mother go through that. And you're right it has a long-term impact on the child as well as the victims. And so I want to thank you all for that. Councilman Greenlee then Councilman Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very briefly. First of all, I don't think anybody can put this issue in prospective anymore than you three women just did. And Ms. Brown, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head right here at the end of your statement when you said they need a place that will holistically help them regain their lives and start their futures. And I think that's really the issue here not just getting away for that particular night, but getting help to rebuild your life. And I think's that's the thing I think we have to keep sort emphasizing here. And Ms. Norris-Jones, just a quick question. You had said -- on that same line you had said I think that you also before you went to Women Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com Against Abuse got away to other places, a different place. RENEE NORRIS-JONES: No, it was always through Women Against Abuse, but they don't always have space. So you either go back to your abuser or they say we can put you up here for one night, we can put you up here for a couple of days. The difference is the support you get.

Right. RENEE NORRIS-JONES: The one place they put me for two weeks I was totally isolated versus there they're helping you get on your feet, you know, what can we do, how can we be of help. It's always how can we help you.

Again, and that's the key to transitioning you to get out of that atmosphere. RENEE NORRIS-JONES: I think you folks -- you guys asked how many times women come back. When I went through the shelter and having been out of this relationship for 30 years now, when I went through you had a week. At the end of my seven years that time went to three weeks, which was just a lifetime. So you have a week or you have ten days women you have to keep going back because when Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com that ten days up, you're going back to where you started from. So you get smarter every time you leave and start making other arrangements. I mean I started to keep extra cash in a tampon, take it apart, put it in there so when I left I could grab that and I had something to get me a cab or carfare or a phone call to make it, so you have to look at the time frame. When they said it's 90 days, I'm Like wow that's like three lifetimes. But you can't -- you have to leave where you're at right now and go some place and start your life over. You can't back to work, you can't go back to school, and you're starting a whole new life. Can you do that in 90 days with no support?

Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilman -- the Chair recognizes Councilman Johnson.

And I just want to commend all three of you for stepping up to the plate and sharing your testimony. More importantly your courage. Your courage really exemplifies how important this issue is. So I just want you to know that we clearly understand that it takes a lot of courage to come up here and share your story. Councilman Jones kind of pushed me just Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com to really put some of this into context, how as a kid you experienced it. You know, as a kid the issues of domestic violence within your own -- from a personal standpoint within your own home, and you're own family. Kind of as a man now, probably 30 years later, I see the dynamics of how certain folks in the family operate just based upon certain things that took place, you know, just growing up. And more importantly how I how outlook on just day to day life. I think it's critical that you came here today to listen. You know, we can talk the policy stuff, and we can the talk the budget stuff, but we never want to professionalize the issues that affect people on the human level. So I thank you sincerely for stepping up to the plate and sharing your testimony. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you again. Will the Clerk bring forth the next Panel.

Michelle Levy and Susan Sorenson. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you. Can you state your name for the record. MICHELE LEVY: Michelle Levy. com CHAIRMAN JONES: Ms. Levy. SUSAN SORENSON: And Susan Sorenson. CHAIRMAN JONES: Okay. Begin your testimony. MICHELE LEVY: I thank you for inviting me the opportunity to provide testimony on the dire need of Philadelphia to create additional emergency shelter beds for victims of domestic violence and others in our City. Allow me to introduce myself and our agency. Again, my name is Michele Levy, I'm the managing attorney for the organization called Homeless Advocacy Project. I'm actually providing testimony of our executive director Marsha Cohen who prepared the testimony and was unable to be here today because of an emergency family health matter. The Homeless Advocacy Project has provided free, civil legal services to homeless individuals and families residing and accessing services in Philadelphia's homeless shelters, soup kitchens, overnight cafes and transitional housing facilities throughout the City. com their civil legal needs. While we handle 50 different types of cases, we are perhaps best known for our benefits work. For example, through our celebrated SOAR Project, where we help disabled homeless men and women to obtain SSI benefits on a rapid basis. And through our Veterans Project we help homeless veterans to access generous Veterans disability and pension benefits, many times six figure awards that can lift homeless veterans out of poverty. Both SOAR and Veterans Projects help clients exit state welfare programs in favor of more generous federal benefits. However, increasingly we have been called on to intercede when homeless families and individuals are turned away from Philadelphia's shelter system for lack of capacity. The problem began in earnest during the summer of 2010, when our office began receiving daily calls from hysterical parents who had been turned away from shelter at the Appletree Center, the central intake site for homeless women and families run by the Office of Supportive Housing, OSH at 1430 Cherry Street. The families were all told by OSH intake workers to make their own arrangements. com Thereafter, on a daily basis mothers, and occasionally fathers and their hungry desperate children began waiting in our office while we waited for OSH to call us back. Often families of four or more are made to wait the longest for shelter. This fall we actually worked with a family of six who waited five weeks to be placed. During that period the children slept at different family members houses and the parents slept in their cars or in parks. The children missed the first three weeks of school. As OSH will tell you, and actually Dainette Mintz did refer to this. The problem of shelter access is much worse during the summer months when families who have been living doubled and tripled up with friends and neighbors all winter split at the seams once the children are out of school and the weather turns warm. More and more family homelessness begins escalating in May before school is out for the summer. This problem now persists well into fall after school has begun. This means scores of homeless children in Philadelphia are missing the start of the school year in the fall. com even further when Appletree intake workers and OSH intake workers began calling us in secret whispering on their cell phones about the large number of families that were being turned away with very young children. Also, for the first time this summer DHS workers began calling our office to inquire whether it was legal for the City to remove children from their parents when City shelter beds were full. HAP has no wish to resort to litigation to resolve this issue, however, as we notified OSH and the law department when we met this past August, HAP will seek legal recourse if the City cannot meet its legal obligation and solve this recurring problem on its own.

Today as is typical for March, the City is making good on its promise to provide emergency shelter beds to the destitute families who present at its front doors. Come June when existing family shelter beds can't satisfy the demand and families are once again forced to sleep in their cars, wander the parks at night or are officially split up by emergency court order, HAP may be forced to file 23 suit. com educated and shelter it's poorest residents. And we know that this City has the resources, humanity and creativity to address this problem. If in brainstorming to help fix the problem, you would like to meet the families experiencing homelessness and hear their heart breaking stories first hand, Marsha Cohen our executive director offers that you can accompany her on her monthly visits to the OSH intake site and the Appletree Center where she meets with families regularly in order to gain access to shelter. And her contact information is attached. Thank you for your time and attention to this critical issue. CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilman and I would like to take you up on that offer to the intake site. And I'm asking this committee and Council to do going forward. MICHELE LEVY: Great. Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: State your name for the record, again. SUSAN SORENSON: I'm Susan Sorenson, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning. com Philadelphia does not exist in a vacuum. It's not the only city that is struggling with the lack of shelter space, and it is not the only city that is dealing with an economic downturn. So I would like to put some of what you have heard already this morning into a larger context. And I do so -- I wanted to say that each of the stories was very detailed. Every number I present has all these people behind them. So sometimes people get caught up in the logistics thing. To me it's very important to keep people and the numbers connected because they both tell important stories. So first and foremost, the goal of domestic violence shelters is to keep people safe by temporarily aid and refuge. And as you can see -- I'm not sure in what order they are, but there's a line graph of the homicide data, that the National Institute of Justice pulled together from the FBI homicide reporters. As you can see, intimate partner violent homicide has dropped in the past 30 years. The blue line at the bottom is the number of intimate parter homicides of white men, which has dropped by over half. com partner homicides of black men has dropped by half. The yellow line shows the number of intimate partner homicides of black men had dropped by 75 percent. There were over 800 homicides in 1976 and fewer than 200 in 2005. And the red line at the top that indicates the number of intimate partner homicides of white women, the only number that has increased by percent before settling back down to 9 its original number of about 800. 10 Why have these number decreased, well, at 11 least most of them. Research by Dugan and the 12 colleagues at Carnegie Mellon suggest that three 13 factors might be responsible. First, the declining 14 domesticity, that no-fault divorce law, we've had 15 shifts in marriage laws, the improved economic 16 status of women in that time, so women have more 17 options and can leave. 18 And lastly, is the increased availability 19 of domestic violence services. If I recall the 20 first domestic violence shelter in the United States 21 was 1974. But the bottom line is that there are 22 fewer deaths. So that's the good news, and a piece 23 of that message take away is that having adequate 24 resources can help reduce deaths. com rest of the nation? Data from the 2011 one-day census that is conducted by the National Census of Data, it's a national census of battered women programs, and they indicate that the City Council could be doing it better. Philadelphia has 15,300 people for every domestic violence shelter bed.

And it is important that -- Council Member Johnson indicated these are emergency beds, it's not calling for Council for transitional housing, reserved emergency beds. So that's the area on the chart in front of you, and that's where Philadelphia is. Pennsylvania without Philadelphia has 11,700 people per shelter bed, that's about 4,000 fewer. S. states, not cities, states have a ratio worse than that of Philadelphia. The state of Ohio was essentially tied with Philadelphia. And those with the worse ratios were Alabama -- and then you see an interesting pattern. Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Virginia. And we have to remember as Meghan Kincade, director of the shelter of Women Against Abuse indicated that about half of the residents of battered women shelters in Philadelphia are children. com beds that are actually available to battered women, it's far fewer than the numbers that I mentioned here. S. Department of Justice released a report on intimate partner homicide that was just in November, but they did not include numbers like this they didn't update those. But what they did show was that in 2008, the most recent year for which they have data available nearly half of the homicides of woman, both white and black women were by an intimate partner. By contrast, only about five percent of the homicides of men, both white and black men were by an intimate partner. So research suggest that there are things that we need to do to reduce the homicide of women. So battered women's shelters are among the interventions that are designed to reduce the exposure to an abusive partner. They do reduce an abusers opportunity to harm the victim. Can they eliminate severe injury to women at the hands of her abuser, no. No one single intervention can do that. A coordinated effort across systems has the potential to reduce harm. Battered women's shelters, however, provide a unique and unduplicated service. Thank you. com CHAIRMAN JONES: Councilman Greenlee raised a couple of interesting questions about why we rank where we are by way of comparable counties and I see that comparison has gone onto various states. I have a couple of questions and probably Councilman Greenlee may have some questions as well. Is it -- does the red line suggest that it's white women that statistically have not fallen as dramatically? SUSAN SORENSON: That statistic has not fallen as dramatically. CHAIRMAN JONES: Can you tell me why that is? SUSAN SORENSON: Don't know. CHAIRMAN JONES: Okay. Fair enough. Number two, on these homicide victims, how many of them had a prior run-in with that domestic partner? SUSAN SORENSON: There is no 21 research available on that. CHAIRMAN JONES: How many of them are by way of homicide with a gun or a prior domestic partner, you have not done that type of research? com SUSAN SORENSON: No. 2 CHAIRMAN JONES: Then something is wrong. SUSAN SORENSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN JONES: Something is fundamentally wrong when we don't somewhere have the answers to these questions. SUSAN SORENSON: Some of the answers might be available, but they have to come from the police department. And I believe the Philadelphia Police Department does have some information based upon prior police contacts of the domestic violence homicides in the City, but they're not in the recent data. I believe they could provide that information that you requested. CHAIRMAN JONES: One of the good things about having a hearing prior to the budget meeting is we get a bite at the apple again. So we are going to take these questions -- unanswered questions to the appropriate individuals who may have a better sense of this. And at some point I'm going to encourage my colleague, Councilman Johnson, to do a more longated discussion around this sound public policy. The shelter system is one aspect of this. com other things are another aspect of this. And I -- Councilman and I were sharing war stories, and we have to treat this differently.

It is not okay. It's not funny, it's not cool. It is murder. It is murder. And I remember as a child, you know, the neighbors saying oh, that's just your mom and your dad, that it's okay. It's not okay. It's not okay. And like I said 99 percent of the time he was a great guy, but that one percent he turned into someone else. So we have to take -- we have to peel the layers off of these statistics and find some causes and more importantly find some cure to the situation. And I thank you for you testimony. Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very quickly, and I'm sorry I had to step out for a second. I was trying to read through this real quickly, and Council -- the Chairman might have asked this, and I was trying to read through your testimony real fast. Is there any statistics as far as women that have had -- have gone through a shelter or have gotten help, some intervention a percentage of them who would be a victim of homicide or just victims of violence after that? Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com SUSAN SORENSON: To my knowledge, no. But there might be research out there. But it's only shelters that can do that research because of confidentially reasons, they're not able to release the information to us.

The reason I asked that is I'm trying to show that obviously people who get this help, you know, obviously the percentage I would think would drop well down, so it's obviously one that will work out well if we're able to do it so. Yes, I mean I agree with the Chairman, we have to keep fighting through this to try to find some way -- I know there's lots of money issues out there, but when you're talking about homicide that says it all right there. SUSAN SORENSON: May I add it's also -- if you look up the definition -- the international definition of torture, much of what you heard from the previous Panel will constitute torture. So the homicide victims that we're looking at are a small portion, a very important portion. But the women who live with this it's a human rights violation. CHAIRMAN JONES: Thank you, Councilman Greenlee. Councilman Johnson. Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com

Just very briefly. Thank you -- wait for one second, just a quick question. Thank you for being here today. I just want to go back to the numbers, right. And part of your testimony sort of deals with the dropping of homicides between the two departments. And I would think just as for the U.S., for the United States in general, correct. Whereas a City of Philadelphia some of the numbers I wanted to highlight. Specifically for the data we have from 2007 to 2009, the domestic homicide rate particularly in Philadelphia arose by 50 percent. And in 2008 to 2009, it went up to 71 percent from to 36 homicides. And in 2010, there were 30 16 homicides particularly in the City of Philadelphia. 17 So the numbers there are being reported are for the 18 country as a whole, but particularly the City of 19 Philadelphia the -- it's clearly based upon the 20 numbers the need for an increase of services that I 21 think may have an adequate impact, not the sole factor, but will definitely in whole bring this number down. SUSAN SORENSON: That's why it's important to have the local data, and over a number Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com of years so you can see whether it's just one, two three to research to get as many numbers as you can to see a better pattern.

Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN JONES: Without -- any more questions?

No. 9

No. 10 CHAIRMAN JONES: The Chair thanks the Panel. Will the Clerk call the next group of Panels.

Carol Tracy, Nicole Lindemyer, and Roberta Hacker. CHAIRMAN JONES: This is the last group to testify today that's registered with us. If there are any other people that wish to testify, they need to see the Clerk right away. Thank you. And for the record, would you state your name. CAROL TRACY: I'm Carol Tracy. NICOLE LINDEMYER: I'm Nicole Lindemyer. com Hacker. CHAIRMAN JONES: Would you please start. CAROL TRACY: Councilman Clark, members of the Public Safety Committee, I thank you for being here. CHAIRMAN JONES: Whoa, whoa. The President doesn't like to be called other names. I'm Councilman Jones. He's listed as such so... CAROL TRACY: Sorry. CHAIRMAN JONES: That's all right. CAROL TRACY: I'm the executive director of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia. We are a public interest law center devoted to improving the legal, social and health status of women. Our work involves high impact litigation, public policy development, advocacy and public education. For more than a decade Women's Law Project has been involved in numerous initiatives to improve public policy and services to victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence in Philadelphia. com reviewing and monitoring city cervices dealing with violence against women. In 1999 through 2001, this committee held a series of hearings connected with the allegations made in the Inquirer that the Philadelphia Police Department was not investigating sex crimes. The public oversight from this committee along with the leadership from former Mayor Street and former Police Commissioner Timoney led to a major reorganization of the police response to sex crimes and child abuse. It included the reopening and review of thousands of mishandled sex crime cases, the improvement of the departments crime coding system, supervision of investigation and decision making, and the relocation of the Special Victims Division to a state of the art facility. One of the most significant outcomes was the invitation to the Women's Law Project to organize a final review of sex crime cases, which we have done annually since the year 2000 along with our colleagues from Women Organized Against Rape, The Support Center for Child Advocates and the Philadelphia Children's Alliance. S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs. We turned to the Public Safety Committee in 2005, and requested hearings on Philadelphia's response to domestic violence. And I urge you to look at that testimony. At those hearings every single person of every major agency in Philadelphia testified about what they were doing or frankly, what they were not doing related to domestic violence. As a result of those hearings Mayor Street created the Domestic Violence Task Force and appointed then Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and me as its co-chair. The Task Force was charged with the responsibility of improving service delivery and coordination of services for domestic violence victims in Philadelphia. They completed a survey of existing service gaps which it provided to the City, and the City provided to essential funding to consolidate hotlines with Philadelphia and to double the capacity of shelter beds, which you heard earlier testimony about that. com Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women for funding to improve Philadelphia's law enforcements response to domestic violence. To date we have done three applications and we have received $3 million. And we are very grateful that the Office of Support Services has been the City agency that has handled the funding for those. The Domestic Violence Law Enforcement Committee replaced the Task Force and has brought together police, judicial, prosecution and advocacy leadership and meets monthly to monitor grant activities, and to develop partnerships and strategies for improvements. I co-chair on the Domestic Violence Law Enforcement Committee along with Chief Assistant District Attorney Deborah Harley of the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit.

The funding from these grants has been used to train over 1,600 police supervisors, victim assistance officers, domestic abuse detectives, first responders and dispatchers. com and assist petitioners in Protection from Abuse proceedings. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the collaboration has been the reorganization of the Police Department's response to domestic violence. Through Commissioner Ramsey and Deputy Commissioner Fox, the Philadelphia Police Department as a result of that significant spike in homicides in 2009, consulted with the Domestic Violence Law Enforcement Committee, and totally revised its police incident form to collect significantly more information about domestic violence. It also established a partnership which occurred with Women Against Abuse to follow up with calls to domestic violence complainants, and also developed an internal system within the police department to follow up with 911 callers in cases that do not result in an arrest, but have the potential to escalate. I urge this committee actually to learn more about this incredibly, impressive and positive development directly from the PPD. And in fact, I think it would be really useful if you would have another hearing and look at all the law enforcement response. com police response. We look at the prosection response, which is very good. We look at probation where we're doing significant work, and the courts criminal and justice -- in the criminal justice and also Family Court. I think you will not be pleased with the results from the courts. However, we're doing extensive work in this area. We've come to understand that law enforcement should not be the primary remedy or response for families experiencing domestic violence. In many respects it should serve as the last resource. When in reality it is frequently the first or the only resource. We also know that there is a very high dropout rate by domestic violence victims in both civil and legal proceedings. We speculate that this is in part because they need and want support from public health and human services, and those services are only minimally available. Let me just -- and this is not part of my testimony, but let me put this in context because we talked about the budget. I serve on the City's Committee Oversight Board for the Department of Human Services. com penny of it. Our Behavioral Health System in Philadelphia that deals with substance abuse, mental health, mental retardation I think their budget approaches $1 million. When all of the funding is put together for domestic violence services, dedicated to domestic violence services run by our four domestic violence and sexual assault program, it's probably less than $8 million. There is not a locust in City Government, and quite frankly -- I also want to commend OSH because they because when any other health and human services agency in Philadelphia has taking this issue off -- has taking this issue on rather. So we know -- back to law enforcement, from the callers to our telephone counseling services that many victims do not want law enforcement intervention. Indeed some believe there is research to support it, that the involvement with law enforcement can escalate the violence. com capacity to serve. And nowhere is that more evident than in the need to have more emergency shelter beds. We also know that domestic violence is very complicated. It's about violence against a person in a relationship with the perpetrator. There is no quick answer or one clear response as Dr. Sorenson pointed out. That is why all of the agencies and all of the disciplines that are involved with families where domestic violence exists must come together to develop and provide better services and interventions. We are aware of the serious financial constraints in Philadelphia, particularly in light of the devastating proposed cuts in state funding for many health and human services.

These cuts in service may actually result in an increase to domestic violence service needs. Though poverty does not cause domestic violence, we know it transcends all economic categories. But the desperation resulting from impoverishment and lack of services certainly exacerbates violence in the home. com ways to provide more emergency shelter services for those endangered by domestic violence. This Committee has answered the call for assistance for this vulnerable population before. We hope you can do so again. I recently spoke with Mayor Nutter who asked me to put together a briefing for him about the progress we've made and the ongoing needs. I am convinced that with the cooperation and collaboration that currently exist within Government, that we can create a coordinated community response that will both respond to but most importantly prevent domestic violence. I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. CHAIRMAN JONES: We'll hold our questions until all of the Panel has had opportunity to speak. NICOLE LINDEMYER: Good afternoon, I'm Nicole Lindemyer. On behalf of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and our statewide network of 60 domestic violence programs serving all 67 counties, and serving nearly 100,000 victims each and every year. com thank you for the opportunity to present information today. I will tell you that prior to my role as the policy director at PCADV, I was a civil rights litigator who specialized in fair housing actions. And in particular the intersection between violence against women and housing. So this subject is one that is very, very close to my heart. As we stand in support on behalf of the entire Commonwealth, the goal of my testimony today is to provide a statewide context in which we can the access the need of Philadelphia for domestic violence shelter budget cuts relative to the rest of Pennsylvania. I'll start by saying the domestic violence context is everything. A single look, a word, a gesture taken alone may be meaningless, but in the context of a pattern of violent abuse, the same look, word gesture can communicate a terrifying signal of more violence to come. Similarly here in assessing the need for shelter context is everything. Philadelphia's domestic violence programs exist within a critical network of programs and services that extends beyond the borders of this City. com needs of Philadelphia's domestic violence programs. Moreover, the nature of domestic violence itself compels reliance on that network of services. Often victims who are at high risk of being killed must flee and relocate to a neighboring county, and so we have to make ensure their perpetrator can't find them by relocating them, and making sure that there is a shelter available in a neighboring county. That network nature of domestic violence serves at the core of our statewide coalition. So let's look at the capacity in terms of domestic violence shelters that's in the region, in the Southeast Pennsylvania region as opposed to just the City of Philadelphia. As you can tell from the tables on the following pages, there's a lack shelters beds in this region. It's not only in Philadelphia, it is common to all surrounding counties as well. So just a brief assessment as these tables can tell you, that a number of shelter beds per 10,000 people is point five for the Southeast region. One point zero for the Southwest region, including Allegheny County. And one point two for the South Central Pennsylvania region, including Harrisburg and Dauphin County. com There are several factors -- and we heard earlier testimony, and I won't repeat it. But just the purporting of the high number of unmet request for shelter here in Philadelphia. And the reason for that is attributable to several different factors including Pennsylvania's size, it's enormous about one point two million people, the economics and demographics here.

But part of the answer again, is found by looking at that network of services within the region. When a victim flees her home and turns to a domestic violence shelter for help and that shelter has no beds, what happens is not a simple turn way, she's not simply told sorry, we're full. Instead the program tries diligently to find the victim a place to go in a nearby domestic violence shelter, then offers help with transporting the victim to that shelter. For Women Against Abuse the programs that they would turn to for alternative shelter space would be those surrounding counties Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Bucks, et cetera. Now Unsurprisingly, the counties with the next highest number of unmet requests for shelter are exactly those. com et cetera, et cetera. What this means for victims is that they must travel farther and farther out of Philadelphia to secure even a temporary place to stay. Many victims simply can't do that. They can't afford to leave their jobs. They can't yank their kids out of school. They can't -- they may be -- it may be necessary for them to go to certain medical appointment that are available only here, they can't uproot their lives. So what do they do, they make a choice. And they generally have three options, one of them is usually spent by the time they turn to a domestic violence program. And that's turning to their family and friends. Usually, that's the first place they went when they realized they had to leave a situation, and so those family and friends options are usually exhausted by the time she comes to the shelter. The second one is staying at a general homeless shelter and that presents many risks. She can be found there and killed by an extremely ticked off batterer on a murderous bent. com violence shelters. Or she can return home to her abuser where she's subjected to further abuse, and that one I think deserves a little bit more attention. As Dr. Sorenson was mentioning earlier Philadelphia has the highest number of domestic violence fatalities in the State of Pennsylvania. There's another little table here in my testimony on . You can see there the stark increase in 2009, that actually surpasses 2010, and it's really not taking much of a decrease in 2011. I have copies of our statewide fatality report to give to each of you. It was actually just published just last week, so this is hot off the press. I think that the high number of homicides in Philadelphia tells us the story of what's happening in that women who are not given the specialized services that they need are going to back abusers over and over and over, and are being killed. It's really is that stark, and the numbers spell that out. If you don't mind, I'd like to comment on a few questions that were raised earlier, because I think they're significantly important and you raised them as a questions yourself. com between a general homeless shelter and a domestic violence shelter, I think this really needs to be emphasized. And I think there are three key differences. Security and attention to safety. The population of domestic violence victims who are leaving their homes and going into a shelter, are completely different than the general population in that their being chased down by someone who wants to kill them. Their safety needs are parallel. Safety is always the paramount consideration in any domestic violence advocacy. And so our shelters are designed to provide safety by providing extra security, by having confidential locations. A second key difference between a general homeless shelter and a domestic violence shelter is one of one's I mentioned earlier, one that the coalition takes extreme pride in, and that is confidentiality of services. There is a very strong -- one of the strongest in the nation, statutory privilege between an advocate and the battered women or domestic violence and program services. That means that their identity is confidential.

com questions about research why we haven't been able to research how many people sought shelter and were turned away and what happen to them. Well, the answer in part is that we can't by law disclose the identity of people who turn to domestic violence shelters. So confidentiality is the second one. Another one is the services and advocacy that only domestic violence programs provide. And as the Councilman Greenlee said earlier it's the help that's needed to rebuild their life. If you have been isolated from your family, from your friends you have no support network whatsoever. You've probably have been prevented from going to work, going to school, been told you're worthless. You've been told you'll never be able to stand on your own. You have a lot of healing to do. And it's domestic violence programs where that healing takes place. And then finally, this relaters back to number one, the consequences of not getting shelter are very different for domestic violence victims then they are for members of the general homeless population. The general homeless population may have to spend the night under a bridge in their car. com who is going to kill them. And keeping the severity of the situation is always at the forefront of our advocacy, which is again paramount. Another issue that was raised earlier was the budget. The domestic violence line item in the state budget I think it bears noting here that it has been -- this will be the 12th State fiscal year that our statewide services and funding for domestic violence services in Pennsylvania has remained flat lined. Eleven, years now and we're still getting 11 the same amount of money. Now, imagine what a 12 dollar could buy 11 years ago, 12 years ago that it can't anymore. So our programs are hammering staff. It's not just in Philadelphia we're serving here, as well as throughout the rest of the State. There's health insurance up, rent up, the cost of salaries, the cost of living up, up, up. It's just like providing for a family that is struggling, you know, things are more expensive now particularly in a recession. Now, imagine if your family consisted of 30 people who are running for their lives who have no clothes, who have no 23 food, who have no nothing, and it's your job to provide for them. That's what domestic violence programs do and it's incredibly costly. com There's a second source of statewide funding that domestic violence programs throughout Pennsylvania get, and that is a $10 surcharge on marriage licenses. We have had state legislation pending session after session after session to raise this marriage license fee. It has never once been raised since it was accepted in 1990. So we are lobbying the state legislature to have the marriage license and divorce filing fees targeted with an increase dedicated to domestic violence services. CHAIRMAN JONES: I'm sorry, we were just inspired by something you said. NICOLE LINDEMYER: Oh, great. I'm glad you're inspired. CHAIRMAN JONES: And we're trying to get a solution here. NICOLE LINDEMYER: One final note there is testimony earlier that I thought also deserved another follow up, and that is the federal prioritization within HUD of long-term or so called permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. I would argue that the budget for HUD and the funding available for homeless services is a zero budget. When you put more over here you're taking some from over there. com the funding for emergency shelter is going down, the funding for permanent housing is going up. I would say that that is a priority of -- this is my opinion, I'm sorry, of the prior federal administration. In our current administration we're seeing another priority emerge, and it's very interesting to watch the development of it. It first came through in the stimulus act era and that is what's called Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Permanent Housing. Sometimes people refer to it as Housing First.

What it does is it says when people come to a shelter program when their at this transition period if their life, when their going through a crisis address the most pressing need first. And the most pressing need is housing. Housing is the underline opportunity structure that leads to all other structures. Jobs, healthcare, everything else comes down to having a home. So in terms of addressing the millions of client's in crisis, you have to address that most pressing need first, and that has been emergent federal priority that we're seeing -- early research showing that's it very affective. com Philadelphia's programs. CHAIRMAN JONES: The Chair recognizes Councilman Johnson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would have gone after the next testimony. But is that separate from -- I want to make sure I'm going in the right direction. So the earlier testimony was that the Federal Government is focusing more on long-term housing in it's budget as opposed to the immediate funding of emergency shelters. And I think part of your testimony was that if we increase the number of beds emergency shelter wise, you want to also make sure we have a budget for the opportunity to get a house; is that correct? NICOLE LINDEMYER: Exactly, it is a correct.

So I want to make sure I'm following this correctly. So if the Federal Government is saying we want to focus more on long-term housing for individuals who are coming out of emergency shelters, that was your earlier testimony. Your testimony now is -- your testimony is the most pressing need is to give a person housing for structure so they can move Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com forward. Is that pretty much saying the same thing? NICOLE LINDEMYER: Somewhat, yes. It's recognizing -- in my opinion it's recognizing the need for a housing market that creates opportunities for people at all income levels.

Got you. NICOLE LINDEMYER: Instead of saying permanent housing exist let us dedicate our funding there. What we find is that most of those housing opportunities are not accessible to those in a permanent shelter, unless it's subsidized. What we've got not now is intentionally looking far housing that is accessible and safe, and affordable for low income people so that they can get out of the shelter system as quickly as possible. Now, with capada -- and I'm sorry I talk a lot, I can't help it. With capada I'm speaking about general homelessness programs. When you're talking about domestic violence it's a very different subject.

Right. And the reason why I said thank you to the Chairman for helping out. com the issue. Well, you know, we got -- there is support for homeless shelters across the board, and I zero that down and say no, we're talking about emergency domestic violence shelter from a Public Safety standpoint. And that's something quite different from just shelters for women and families in general. And I'm glad you're straight forth. NICOLE LINDEMYER: In the domestic violence specific realm a long-term solution is the building of more transitional housing so that you've got places for battered women to go to as Representative -- oh, I'm sorry, Councilman Greenlee said. Rebuild your life, rebuild, and that's what -- even with transitional housing what that is is a year-and-a-half to two years of safe, supported housing particular to domestic violence victims. And I can tell you Women Against Abuse has several transitional housing units, not nearly enough. They've been able to increase their emergency shelter capacity. com without saying you're on your own now. CHAIRMAN JONES: We're going to let -- we want to let the last person testify. NICOLE LINDEMYER: She's used to me talking too much. CHAIRMAN JONES: That's all right. This is a wealth of information and we're trying to digest it all at once. And it only shows that there are more questions that are going to need further study. But one of the things that almost is counter intuitive to me is that if you have needs, meaning higher income -- and I'm only assuming that when you run from a situation at home and many people don't have those needs to establish themselves quickly, rapidly and resume their lives, economically if I have the means I can go pay down on an apartment, stay at a hotel is the immediate issue to transition into my next direction. And it would seem that people who do not have those find themselves more often to return back to their abuser. NICOLE LINDEMYER: Absolutely. CHAIRMAN JONES: Is that your understanding as well? com domestic violence is very interesting. So frequently even when a woman has the means it is not an escape. So I -- you know, the -- I think one of the important messages from today's hearing is the recognition of in fact how few public resources, public dollars are available to deal with one incident, and that can have an impact as to incredible health consequences, it certainly has legal consequences, and criminal justice consequences. But the health and social consequences associated with domestic violence are fundamentally not represented in any of our public budgets. It's -- the funding extremes that Nicole talked about is marriage license here, federal dollars here it's a patchwork of inadequate funding of what is it a million in the State budget, out of a billion. 18 I mean it's the came process portion that I talked 19 about in Philadelphia. 20 It just is not in any -- and it's not 21 incorporated enough in our civic services. com domestic violence. But we are so far from where we need to be. CHAIRMAN JONES: I'm going to take authority as Chair and allow the last person to testify, then we'll open up for questions again. But it's such an emotionally charged issue that it -- and it has kind of just opened the pandora's box if you would, to figure out ways we can be useful. Please state your name for the record. ROBERTA HACKER: My name is Robert Hacker. And I was looking for my saying from the words of woman who was married to a minister who savagely beat her. And she said this to me, once the loving bond of a relationship is broken by violence, the relationship ceases to exist. And that was pretty powerful -- a pretty powerful statement. Once it's broken it ceases to exist. I have served Women in Transition for 20 years. And we have been in operation since 1971, 21 providing empowerment counseling, advocacy, and 22 community education to the citizens of Philadelphia.

23 Back when we first started for domestic violence the 24 only remedy was the incredible peace bond, remember 25 them, they were very inadequate. com There is an advance need for specialized services for abused women in Philadelphia, and there are four programs and providers working to help them find safety, justice and support to rebuild their lives that have been torn apart by domestic violence. Women in Transition, Women Against Abuse, Luthern Settlement House Bilingual Domestic Violence Program, Investigative Community Kaynette Domestic Violence Program. Each of us operate independently from each other and each maintains our own unique identity in approach to serving battered women and their children. But since 1997, we have been collaborating with the hotline services as well as community education and training programs in systems advocacy in an need to increase our overall strength and ability to serve battered women and their families. And in 2006, we began operating a collaborated countywide domestic violence hotline, the Philadelphia Domestic Violence Hotline. And I want to note that that's probably the first time in my experience in Philadelphia that I actually saw the City up front step up and offer to support our program. com that we talked about earlier, and the Mayor at the sits on City Council, we had talked about the need for that program. It was supposed to cost -- and actually it does cost close to a $1 million to operate. We get funding of $250,000 to operate that hotline. Through the hotline we are able to identify the most pressing needs of those calling for help, and those needs are affordable housing and emergency shelter. Although Women Against Abuse is the sole provider for emergency shelter, the three other partners in our collaboration provided continued empowerment services to support the path from victims to survivor. However, when individuals are victimized by domestic violence the concept of safety does not exist. And without a safe place or affordable housing, emergency shelter, the individual cannot safely prioritize moving ahead to break free from the cycle of violence. com as a permanent solution to the problem with domestic violence, which is community accountability which strongly communicates that domestic violence is acceptable, accepts full accountability from abusive individuals by applying appropriate consequences, and leading all of our special institutions to expect full accountability from each other by developing public policies that promote non-violence in the home and in the community. And I want to also respond to some of the things that were said here. From 1997 to 2006, as the co-founder of Philadelphia's Relief Team, and we conducted research for almost ten years on women who died of a range of issues. And we were trying to identify the extent of intimate partner violence in their lives, and it was pretty astounding. And one thing -- because we talked about the number of homicides we have now. In this report we determined that from '97 to 2006, there were 241 deaths that we reviewed and they involved firearms, mostly all of them. And also that homicides -- CHAIRMAN JONES: Can you repeat that last sentence. ROBERTA HACKER: Yes. Let me go down this list, I sort of jump ahead. com with homicides in general. We reviewed 358 Philadelphia women who died as a result of homicide from 1997 and 2006, more than one and four homicide victims had a known history of the domestic violence. I also will add that most of those women did not turn to a domestic violence agency for help for reasons we don't know. But the most interesting thing is that those women were receiving services from almost every city agency who never identified domestic violence as an issue in their lives.

CHAIRMAN JONES: That is the most frustrating statistic of all the testimony from personal challenges, and from some of the victims, that is the damaging statistic that we're not tracking this, that there is a pattern in abused women that retro engineering we can figure out how to impact it from a positive way. So that statistic -- we've been asking that question. So where is the source of that? ROBERTA HACKER: That's from our review. I'll send you a copy of this report so you look at it, it's pretty thorough. com violence. So emergency shelter is up here priority is safety. Women call the hotline because they are running for their lives. They need a place to be safe. Getting them safe that enable the rest of us to provide continue services that they need to change their lives and become safe again. And I am so sick of affordable economical lack of affordable housing. Every time I see in this City come more luxury condominiums or luxury apartments being built somewhere, I want to know where the income level for appropriate working people is in Philadelphia. It is an embarrassment to me to not be able to find a place for a woman and her children to live when I se all around me -- and I live in Queen Village and it wasn't what it is today when I moved there, let me just say. But back then there was affordable housing for regular working people, and that's what our women are. com we look at community violence as out there. Well, that started in their home, and they witnessed it, they saw it, they lived it. And when we can't find housing in a place where that family can grow and nourish and survive, we're just giving them a death sentence. Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: Are there any questions. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just more of a comment, and I thank Councilman Johnson for the fact that the issue that we're talking about is emergency shelter here. And when it comes to lack of funds that affect so many different things, and the worse thing you want to do is try to put people who need help against people who need help, we don't like to do that. But I think it's clear -- and going all the way back to what Jeannine said earlier, clearly Philadelphia is still not doing enough on that particular issue. I think there's a lot of work being done. I heard what Carol said about what OSH is doing, but still I think we got to find a way -- and it's easy to say and harder to do, but we got to find a way to improve that. I mean just 100 beds Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com quite frankly ain't making it. So I'm hoping -- and I know we'll all work together to deal with that issue. Thank you. CHAIRMAN JONES: Before I allow my colleague to close us out, I want to thank him again for bringing this issue to light. It's a continuation issue sited for the record, this Public Safety Committee has long been involved in this issue. But it's good to see the time past for the next generation of advocates. In this process I've learned a lot, and I don't always say that for every Committee I Chair, but what I see are not victims. I don't see survivors, provides or advocates. I see my mother. I see my daughter. I see my sister, my colleagues. I see my friends, and going through a nightmare of domestic violence. I see the economic impact it has. I see the economics that are needed to provide more beds. But what I seen is a question of will that whether or not the law enforcement is coordinated with this, whether or not the courts are taking it as seriously as it should, whether the follow ups and connectivity to understand the complexity of this program is really -- is Government really Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com bringing all it's resources to bare. And again, I thank Councilman Johnson for bringing us to this -- this to our attention, and I would ask him to close us out.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I just want thank everyone for being here providing as we seek to improve the level of advocacy particularly dealing with individuals who experience domestic violence, and particularly the need for more bed space. And when I listen to the testimony regarding the level of support or lack of on a State level on how support services have been flat lined over several years, that -- being a former State Representative, I don't mind reaching out to the Governors office. And really coming from a law enforcement public safety prospective, that's where his background use to be in, so what boggles my mind is why this wouldn't be a priority for a public safety stand point. We're not talking political redarick, but particularly a public safety issue. And so we will take a look at that. But also again, the Councilman -- the Chairman rather talked about further needs to how we do a better job of coordinating services on the city Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com level, and the need to make sure that we prolong this from an advocacy stand point, from a public safety stand point. And Councilman Bill 4 Greenlee and I will also be sitting down with have my staff sit with our staff to see how -- we don't just have this hearing, but making sure as we move forward with more progressive recommendations, some extra items. And we'll be reaching out to all of you who provided system testimony for additional feedback and recommendations on how we keep this issue on the front burner. And that's my commitment as a part of addressing this issue. Go ahead. CAROL TRACY: If I may add, if any of you or if any of your staff would like to attend the domestic violence law enforcement committee meetings, as I said, we meet monthly. And it's a pretty aggressive agenda that we have. You are welcome to be there. CHAIRMAN JONES: We're going to take you up on that offer. Is there anyone here else to testify on behalf of the resolution? If not, this Committee will stand at recess at the call of the Chair. Thank you all very much for your testimony today. (Statement concluded at 1:02 p.m.) Discover Works Global 888.557.8650 www.dw-global.com C E R T I F I C A T E I, HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on March 19, 2012, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ------------------------- APRIL KATE YOUNG