There’s little money and less space. MS Coast domestic violence shelters are always full

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The women find refuge behind locked doors.

Safe, at least for a while, from violent, abusive men in their lives, they fill every bunk bed at a Harrison County domestic violence shelter , where the phones keep ringing with more calls of distress.

The shelter is always full. So, too, is the Coast’s second shelter in Jackson County.

That stark reality has gained new urgency this month after Harrison County authorities found a 22-year-old woman dead in the back of her car and charged her former boyfriend with murder.

Her death was the second this year connected to domestic violence charges in South Mississippi: A 44-year-old mother died last spring after her children’s father shot and killed her , then himself, outside a Dollar General in Stone County.

And off a quiet Mississippi Coast road at the Harrison County shelter, the women and children keep coming even though staff say there is no space to expand.

“If we have no room, there’s always the concern,” said crisis counselor Julie Davenport. “What’s happening in the meantime?”

Mississippi Coast shelter has ‘a revolving door’

So they rarely turn anyone away. The building has space for 44 people. This week, staff said the shelter held closer to 47. About a dozen women are also cleared to come, which means they could show up at the already-full shelter anytime in the next month.

“We have been at or beyond capacity for weeks and weeks and weeks,” said Stacey Riley, chief executive officer at the Gulf Coast Center for N onviolence . “We have a revolving door.”

Capacity comes with tough choices. Staff said a woman and baby recently approved to join the shelter will soon be sleeping on its couch. Referred to the two busy shelters by doctors or police, women are sometimes directed to shelters elsewhere in the state. The staff sends people to hotels if they have to.

A full house also means hectic reality. The shelter staff is constantly replacing laundry detergent and soap for an ever-rotating group. They restock sugar, sweet tea and coffee all the time. They cannot drive everyone around. They run out of bus passes. Davenport, the counselor, spent one day searching Walmart aisles for the right kind of baby formula.

The center says its 24-hour crisis line rings more than 15,000 times each year.

The flow of victims and their children has stayed high and steady for years, staff said. The shelters were full before the COVID-19 pandemic, slowed down in 2020, then filled again and now are busy as ever. They are also sheltering more human trafficking victims, Riley said, and still, every day, people call about domestic violence.

“We could build two more shelters,” said Sarah Jones, chief advocacy officer at the Center for Nonviolence. “We’d fill them.”

The shelter is so large, staff said, that other agencies across the state likely could not house them in a hurricane evacuation. So they bought a generator.

Domestic violence shelters face funding obstacles

The capacity challenge could mean more women are learning about the shelters, Riley said. It is unclear whether domestic violence cases are rising in Mississippi because domestic violence groups lack funding and staff to conduct those studies, according to leaders.

“The challenge that the shelters across the state face consistently is limited funding to do the work that needs to be done,” LaVerne Jackson, the executive director at the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence , said in an email. “Staffing is focused on meeting the immediate needs of victims and survivors, and for all but a few of the state’s DV shelters, there is not time or money left over to do the research that could potentially open up additional funding streams to the shelters.”

Shelter staff on the Coast are already preparing for what they said will be a more than 40% funding cut next year. They are scrambling for the money to make up for it.

Before the pandemic, Riley said the shelters had moments of respite.

Now there are none.

To cope, staff said they are trying to move women and families more quickly toward the final goal: new, safe homes. Most people stay in a shelter for eight weeks then move to a house or apartment paid for by the Center for Nonviolence. Slowly, the family takes over their own finances. That housing service is expanding, and Riley said the program will get more federal funding next month.

“We just want to make sure that nobody dies on our shifts,” said Patricia Boyou, the chief clinical officer, and “that we know everyone is safe.”

“A lot of people don’t realize how prevalent it is,” Riley said after the young woman’s death in Harrison County this month. “And how many people suffer in silence.”

If you or a loved one are a victim of domestic violence in South Mississippi, reach out to the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence 24/7 Crisis Line (800-800-1396), Harrison County (228-435-1968), Jackson County (228-762-8267), Hancock County (228-252-1999) or Northcutt Legal Clinic (228-864-7144).