WICHITA, Kan. — The Ray-Rice video scandal has put a national spotlight on domestic violence.
It’s become such a hot-button issue that local abuse shelters say they’re getting a significant increase in calls for help.
HARBOR HOUSE
At Wichita’s Harbor House, its turning away people from an in-house shelter, said program director Joyce Mahoney.
She said in July, the program turned away 89 people. In August and September, it turned away nearly 150 people.
Though Harbor House is at capacity, Mahoney said it offers out-of-house services like counseling, classes and court advocates. It serves about 850 people a year.
“It’s a wonderful feeling and it’s why we’re all here,” she said. ” We get to witness that transformation from being a victim as they crawl into the shelter, usually with absolutely nothing, to a survivor as they leave with housing and employment, and they’re safe.”
YWCA
Over at Wichita’s YWCA, it offers similar services, including housing and counseling.
“The resources that we offer, they’re critical,” said Kimberly Cronister, the development director for the YWCA. “They’re critical needs for the community. Here at the office, we are working ourselves… we want to work ourselves out of a job. So, it might be a lot of wishful thinking, but we would love for there to not be this issue in the future and for our services to not even be needed.”
The YWCA officers housing for women in need. It also offers other programming and resources for folks in the community. The organization serves about 1,200 people a year.
KAKE’S NEW ANTI-DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN
In light of the national attention and with October being Domestic Violence Awareness month, the KAKE News family is hoping to help those in need.
Recently, we’ve started a series of PSA’s to help victims.
“We simply decided to remind victims that help is available, saying that no one deserves to be abused,” said marketing director Bryan Frye. “The attention is there and people want to know where they can find the information, whether they’re a victim themselves or they know someone, and they want to say something, but they don’t know how or who to give them the proper help to and now they do.”
RESOURCES
http://www.DomesticViolence.org
http://www.ywcaofwichita.org
http://catholicdioceseofwichita.org/family-stabilization/harbor-house