Needed grant aids crime victims’ center

The center, which serves more than 400 clients each month, offers a variety of educational programs for victims of domestic sexual and physical abuse living in Burnet, Llano, Lampasas and San Saba counties. The center also provides shelter for victims and their children, officials said. The facility opened in 1983, and was greatly expanded in 1985.

Executive Director Alma Lahmon said the grant from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation will help fund salaries for the center’s 20 full-time employees, as well as pay for financial assistance for victims.

“It’s a labor-intensive service, and we have to have the staff for that,” she said. “Our goal is to keep people from returning to abusive relationships, so we also use funding to help them get away to where they can survive in safe homes.”

Some of that funding is used to pay for clients’ rent, automobile repairs or medical care, Lahmon added.

“The goal is to help them return to normal life,” she said.

The grant was one of 150 awarded to shelters across the country totaling more than $3 million, Ash Foundation board member Jennifer Cook said in a statement.

According to the foundation, domestic violence affects one in four women in the United States, adding that more than 12,000 Texans spent at least part of 2006 in a domestic-violence shelter.

“The Highland Lakes Family Crisis Center has helped so many women and their families in the Highland Lakes area,” Cook said. “We know they will use these funds to benefit even more domestic violence survivors and their children.”

Lahmon said the center’s staff is on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help victims of domestic violence.

“Our hotline is always open and always answered,” she said. “We also have a 24-hour response team to respond to sexual assault victims.”

Lahmon said the area’s growing population and an upswing in reported incidents mean the center has to be even more budget-concious while working to serve a four-county area.

“We have our outreach activities, which include group counseling and going to area schools,” she said. “We provide services to children at the schools who are survivors or family members of survivors of sexual or physical assault.”

The center also serves as a safe haven for victims who are forced to leave their homes to escape violence — often with little notice.Primary among the shelter’s efforts are teaching survivors of domestic abuse to be self-sufficient, Program Director Julie Douglas said.

“We wanted to make sure we’re giving them all the options,” she said. “We’re including social skills, life skills and job skills so they’ll be better prepared to live independently.”

The center is one of many area nonprofits struggling to make ends meet as federal and state funding sources are cut off — sometimes unexpectedly.

One such organization — the Hill Country Children’s Advocacy Center — continues to seek a new source of funding after receiving news last month that the center was denied an expected $82,000 grant.

The Children’s Advocacy Center uses specially trained staff to conduct interviews with young victims of sexual or physical assault. Video recordings of the interviews are then used by local law enforcement during sex-assault investigations.

According to HCCAC Director Deborah Keith, the grant would have paid for the salaries of her 10 full-time employees. So far, an alternate funding source has yet to surface, casting doubt on the center’s future.

“I’ve written a grant application and sent it to another group,” Keith said Wednesday. “They called back to let me know they received it, but it will be 30 to 60 days before we hear anything. Until then, we’re just moving along.”

Lahmon said the Family Crisis Center receives about 45 percent of its funding from state and federal sources, including the federal Victims of Crime Act.

“The rest comes from local grants and donations like the Legacy Fund of the Highland Lakes Service League,” she said. “We also have our annual fundraisers that help out.”

The group’s most recent golf-tournament fundraiser raised more than $40,000, she added.

“We’re looking forward to our art and wine festival fundraiser this spring,” she said.

For information on donating to the Family Crisis Center, call (830) 693-1680.

chris@thepicayune.com