By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
More than 900 families who have escaped the tragedy of domestic violence have moved into new, beautifully furnished, safer homes in the last decade since the National Council of Jewish Women’s Shalom Bayit: Furnishing Peaceful Homes program has been around. But now the program itself is in immediate danger of closing its doors.
Currently more than 38 women are on a waiting list for the program, which has suspended operations unless organizers can raise a minimum of $100,000 to pay program staff and the costs of the moving company that retrieves donated items and delivers it to clients’ new homes. There is no cost to the clients.
Should Shalom Bayit close, it will lose its 1,700-sq.-ft. warehouse located in an undisclosed area in Redmond, where hundreds of women and men trying rebuild their lives free from a battering partner can choose quality furniture and household items.
“The need has actually increased and we still have growing numbers of women who are survivors of domestic violence,” NCJW President Sandra Elman told JTNews, in a last-minute plea for help from the Jewish community. “Given the strained economy, donations are down considerably, and grants have been reduced dramatically. We’ve been hit on both fronts.”
A donation of free warehouse space in the Seattle metro area would be a miracle of sorts that Elman believes would reflect upon the highest of Jewish values — charity.
“We have dramatically reduced our expenses and taken all possible belt-tightening measures,” Elman wrote in an open letter to NCJW supporters, “yet the cost of operating the program and serving women in need continues to far exceed donations on which we depend.”
On any given day, the state houses 912 survivors in either an emergency domestic violence shelter or transitional housing, according to a 2009 Department of Social and Health Services report.
Of the approximately 887 emergency domestic violence shelters and safe-home programs and the 43 domestic violence programs that contract with the state, Shalom Bayit takes referrals from more than 20 of these programs.
Other county and state agencies simultaneously help survivors find housing, employment, and school placement for their children.
Shalom Bayit is the only program of its kind in Washington, and one of the few in the country that stores, distributes, and delivers household furnishings to these victims.
“We are now facing a tremendous financial crisis,” said Karen Besserman, NCJW Seattle Section’s executive director. “Without our programming, a lot of these women — these victims and their families — may be able to get a house, but they will certainly have trouble turning it into a home.”
Operational funds for the Shalom Bayit program also come from NCJW’s $50 per year membership dues. NCJW’s Seattle Section currently has 400 members.
Though Shalom Bayit had served approximately 150 families per year, mainly women and children, Besserman said, in 2009 referrals spiked to 250.
“We’ve seen a greater increase in the need for our services in difficult economic times,” she said. “I think you see greater incidences of domestic violence.”
Since the program was created in the fall of 2001, Shalom Bayit has collected over 14,000 pieces of “gently used” furniture from nearly 2,000 donors. More than 96 percent of its clients are not Jewish.
“Our mission is to serve everyone,” said Jennifer Cohen, a former co-president of the NCJW Seattle section who has been a volunteer with the organization since 1998. Cohen received its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 for creating the Shalom Bayit program.
In the early days of the program, Shalom Bayit staff would give its clients a mezuzah to place on their doors to welcome them into their new home.
“We had a lot of Jewish clients at the beginning,” said Cohen, telling one of her favorite stories from the early days of the program, when a Jewish woman who had selected a living room full of nearly-new furniture, brought her to tears.
“At the end, I gave her a mezuzah, and she just looked at it, she hugged me, and she said, ‘This is all I needed.’”
Cohen recalled another story of one young mother she helped move into a new apartment after escaping abuse at the hands of her spouse. The two women watched her five young sons, all under the age of 10, jump up and down on their new beds, laughing and shrieking over not having to sleep on the floor in their sleeping bags again for one more night. It was a time of joy and not for scolding, recalled Cohen.
“They’ve had so many things controlled for them,” Cohen said. “The women come in and select what they want that would help them create a home. That is really important — to have that choice.”
Besserman said the board is exploring the idea of spinning Shalom Bayit off of NCJW in the hopes of reducing expenses.
That “is certainly our hope,” Besserman said. “But we’re desperately seeking support to buy some time.”
For more information on the Shalom Bayit program visit www.ncjwseattle.org or call 425-558-1894.