Shelter from the storm

New facility offers safe haven from ill winds of domestic violence

By Anita Miller

San Marcos — The solid wood doors at the new Hays County Women’s Center residential facility close with a resounding thunk — a sound that must be reassuring to the dozens of victims of domestic abuse who will be taking refuge behind them.

The new shelter, on Davis Lane across from McCoy’s headquarters, is 10,000 square feet. Each of its 10 family bedrooms has its own bathroom, and there are indoor playrooms, an outdoor playscape, and “meeting” rooms designed for teens, pre-teens and adults.

Victims of domestic abuse have been calling the facility home for about two weeks now but the finishing touches were still being installed this week. On a tour, HCWC Executive Director Marla Johnson pointed out all the facility’s highlights.

“Security is greatly enhanced,” Johnson said, from outdoor lighting and cameras to keypads on individual interior doors. In addition to the 24-hour on site staff, the fenced and gated facility is also monitored from off-site.

About 300 men, women and children seek shelter through the HCWC each year, and stays are limited to 30 days. Yet the security and other small details the new shelter provides are designed to provide families in crisis a safe place to get back on their feet, to make additional plans.

Little touches make all the difference. For example, the intake room — where a domestic violence victim is initially interviewed after arriving at the shelter — connects to a toy-filled playroom. A big window allows children to see their mother. The toys distracting them, in turn, allow her to turn her attention to the interview.

The bright, whimsical paintings on the playroom’s wall were done by Hays County Court at Law Judge Anna Boling, Johnson notes. Her husband Mark Boling has overseen landscaping efforts that got a big boost from Texas State University’s Bobcat Build program.

In addition to keypad controlled door locks, victims get lockers for personal items. Each new shelter resident gets a toothbrush and basic toiletries.

Many arrive with few belongings, Johnson says. “Some of them don’t even have many clothes on their backs. They come in the middle of the night.” So the center also has clothing, much of it donated by the city’s two outlet malls, and toys galore, some available for children to use, others in storage for birthday and Christmas presents.

Computers are available for residents’ use, as are many TV’s and DVDs.

The shelter’s gleaming kitchen looks out over high ceilings in dining and living room spaces and, on the day of the tour, meat for supper was already defrosting in the sink. Johnson said the HCWC is committed to cooperative group living within the shelter.

Resident families “have house meetings, and decide who will cook, who will clean and who will watch the kids,” Johnson said, explaining that the meetings serve a dual purpose. “Victims can feel so isolated — this is a way for them to get to know each other.”

At capacity, the shelter can house 50 people. Capacity is made more flexible by having two or three women room together in the space that would normally house a family.

The $2 million facility was financed largely through private donations, and donors who gave $10,000 or more will get a room named after them.

As for the land center sits on, the HCWC leases it for $1 a year from the city of San Marcos. Though the original shelter, built in 1984, was always described as being in an “undisclosed location,” the additional security has lessened the need to continue doing so. Back then, Johnson notes, Davis Lane was a dead-end. Now, it goes through the River Road. “We get lots of traffic.”

Having the McCoys headquarters as a neighbor also works out great, she said, and not just because the McCoy family has been a generous donor. Had a “big box” store moved in there, she said, “a batterer could sit over there and watch and we’d never know.”

Johnson said she initially wondered if donors would go for the extra $3,000 it took to provide each room with a private bath. At the old shelter, two rooms would share a bath and often one would lock the connecting door and then forget to unlock it. “Staff would have to come,” she said, before that family could access the bathroom.

But no donor balked at the extravagance. “I think they can picture themselves here,” she said. “Nobody thought it wasn’t a good idea.”

The space at the old shelter is being used now for children’s advocacy services and an expansion of the HCWC’s non-residential services for victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault.

Though the new building is hardly broken in, Johnson is looking ahead to the next addition, which will be 16 units of “supportive transitional housing” on the site, intended for families whose time in the shelter had expired. The HCWC would continue to provide services, but families occupying the units for up to two years would do their own meals, laundry and the like. They would pay a nominal rent, Johnson said, maybe $300 or so, enough to cover maintenance and utilities.

The new space will also allow for more volunteer involvement. For information or to sign up, call 396-3404.