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Memphis Domestic Violence Center for Victims Abruptly Closes Its Doors

A Memphis domestic violence agency has abruptly closed its doors amidst an urgent fight for state funding by victim-serving organizations in Tennessee.

The Family Safety Center of Memphis and Shelby County shut down without warning or public explanation last week.

The agency served as a “one-stop shop” for victims of domestic violence, aiding victims in obtaining orders of protection in coordination with police and the District Attorney’s office, and connecting families to housing, food and other resources.

Its sudden closure has left the web of agencies that worked together to address domestic violence scrambling, said Marqulepta Odom, executive director of the YWCA Greater Memphis.

“We were all caught off guard by its closing in the middle of the week like that,” said Odom, whose agency operates a 78-bed domestic violence shelter, the largest in the state.

Odom said the closure will have a “great impact and a loss for our community for sure. It was that central place that survivors and victims knew where to go.”

But Odom’s agency — like victim-serving agencies across Tennessee this year — also faces an uncertain funding future: federal funding for victims of crime in Tennessee has dwindled in recent years from a peak of $68 million in 2018 to $16 million last year.

The YWCA Greater Memphis experienced a 17 percent cut last year as a result and faces the prospect of crippling budget cuts this year if it cannot find a way to replace the lost federal dollars.

Agencies that operate crisis hotlines, provide counseling to child abuse victims, conduct sexual assault exams and operate shelters are facing additional cuts in federal funding up to 40 percent more come July.

Those ongoing cuts in federal dollars had already hit the Family Safety Center hard before it closed its doors.

The agency received $742,000 in federal crime victim funding in 2020, according to the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs (OCJP), which distributes the federal funding to Tennessee nonprofits. This year, that funding had dwindled to about $132,000.

The OCJP got notice March 6 that the Family Safety Center had shuttered the previous day. Ethel Hilliard, the center’s executive director, “stated that the closure was due to a board decision related to financial issues,” a spokesperson for the OCJP said.

The most recent available tax records show the agency operated at a deficit in 2021 and 2022, when it reported a ­$289,000 deficit. Like other agencies funded through the federal Victims of Crimes Act, it faced steep cuts again in July.

Tennessee victim-serving agencies warn cuts will be ‘catastrophic’ if Gov. Bill Lee fails to act

And while 35 other states have taken action to provide their own state funding in the face of federal crime victim budget cuts, Tennessee is not one of them.

Stephen Woerner, executive director of Tennessee Children’s Advocacy Centers, said the Memphis agency’s closure illustrates the vulnerability of agencies that aid victims of abuse.

“I do not know the details of why they closed, but it speaks to the fragility of the victim serving community, particularly those that have not truly invested in diversifying their funding,” Woerner said.

Woerner’s organization operates 46 centers across the state that employ specialized counselors who work with children who have been abused, neglected or sexually assaulted. The organization received $5.5 million annually from the federal crime victims fund at its peak; this year, it received $2.1 million, he said.

Woerner is among hundreds of advocates across the state who are pressing Gov. Bill Lee to include $25 million in recurring state funding to crime victim agencies in the state’s budget.

Thus far, Lee has not committed. Lee’s office did not respond to a question about the funding on Friday.

Leaders of the Family Safety Center in Memphis have made no public statements about the reasons behind the closure and Ethele Hilliard, executive director, did not respond to emailed questions from the Lookout.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

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News The Fly-By

Gang Affiliation Complicates Domestic Violence Matters

In most domestic violence cases, there are two primary people involved — an abuser and a victim. But for those who are being abused by a gang member, there may be multiple abusers, according to the Family Safety Center’s Executive Director Olliette Murry-Drobot.

“It used to be that when an abuser was in a gang, there was a ‘hands-off’ mentality, as the other members of the gang didn’t interfere in the relationship — it was the abuser’s woman, his business,” Murry-Drobot said. “But, that’s changed, and we have seen a lot more victims being further victimized by their abuser’s fellow gang members. While incarcerated, the abuser has ‘eyes’ on her at all times, receiving reports back about her whereabouts, who she’s spending time with, and such.”

None of the clients of Family Safety Center (FSC) of Memphis and Shelby County who are currently dealing with gang-related domestic violence were willing to speak with the Flyer, but Angie Galyean, an FSC navigator, spoke about her role helping these women escape from abusive situations.

“I notice in more of my higher-risk cases that there’s a gang affiliation there. When there is, there’s also an intimidation factor. You’re not just being intimidated by one offender, you’re also potentially being intimidated by all the other gang members,” Galyean said.

She said gang members are often more violent as abusers, and they have access to more resources, such as guns and bail money from fellow gang members when the offender is locked up.

“If the offender is in jail, all he has to do is make a phone call to one of his fellow gang members, and they can reach out and threaten the victim,” Galyean said.

In non-gang-related cases, Galyean says the FSC will sometimes urge the victims to move across town to get away from their abuser. But in these gang cases, she said it’s not so simple.

“Here in Memphis, the gang members are everywhere, in every part of town. So we’ll encourage them to move some place out of town if that’s a good idea,” Galyean said. “But if their next best option is to go live with their cousin in Atlanta, that may not be a good idea either. If the offender is part of a larger gang, that gang will have reach into other major cities. It’s really difficult. I’m not going to lie.”

Something that makes these cases even more difficult, said Galyean, is the average age of these victims. She said, when there’s gang affiliation in a domestic violence situation, more often than not, the victims are teenagers. If they’re still in high school, moving out of the city isn’t an option. Teenagers can’t even get an order of protection on their own, but rather, their parents must file for the order.

Galyean said it’s hard to say how many such cases end up at the FSC — which helps women with protection orders, safety planning, housing, counseling, and other resources. That’s because some victims facing violence from gang members aren’t willing to tell their FSC navigator about the gang affiliation.

“There’s a fear that if they tell somebody, the gang may retaliate. The victims often have information about gang culture and illegal activities,” Galyean said.

When the FSC does know about gang affiliation, the center can work with the Memphis Police Department and Shelby County Sheriff’s Department’s gang units.

“If it’s one gang member, it’s not considered gang activity. But if it’s two gang members, it is,” Galyean said. “If that happens, we let the domestic violence units know, and they pass that along to the gang units.”

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Memphis Gaydar News

“Love Doesn’t Hurt” Benefit

The Shelby County Family Safety Center has a special emergency fund for victims of same-sex domestic violence, and this weekend, the organizers of the “Love Doesn’t Hurt” fund will be holding its third annual benefit event. It will be held on Friday, March 27th at Club Spectrum at 7:30 p.m.

The benefit includes live entertainment and guest speakers from the district attorney’s office, as well as speeches from victims of domestic violence. The cover charge is $7.

Funds raised this weekend will be used for LGBT victims of domestic violence to provide emergency shelter, transportation, food, clothing, and relocation. In 2012, Phyllis Lewis, a domestic violence witness coordinator for the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, started the “Love Doesn’t Hurt” fund.

“In the first case we dealt with, the person had completely left the home and needed somewhere to go,” Lewis said. “We housed that person in a hotel for a week, and then they decided they wanted to leave Memphis. So we helped that person get out of town. We want them safe from violence. The last thing we need is another homicide.”

They also collect hygiene products to hand out to victims.

“When you’re running from your wife, you’re not going to think about grabbing some deodorant,” Lewis said.

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News The Fly-By

New Initiative Aims to Curb Domestic Violence

Kamekio Lewis still remembers the night her former boyfriend chased after her with a knife as she ran barefoot through a neighborhood. When she slipped and fell, she was captured, dragged through the nearby woods by her hair, and brutally beaten.

“He took me to an abandoned house,” Lewis recalled. “My mom ended up finding me some kind of way the next day. Charges were filed: kidnapping [and] assault. I ended up having to be hospitalized. I had a concussion.”

Lewis’ abusive relationship lasted more than two years before she escaped by entering the army. She hasn’t looked back since.

A new comprehensive response to domestic violence, called the Blueprint for Safety, has been launched to aid people in situations like Lewis’. The initiative is intended to assist victims from the time they experience domestic violence and contact a 911 operator through law enforcement’s response and the offender’s prosecution.

Lewis’ story of domestic abuse is all too common. There were 247,069 reports of domestic violence offenses made to the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System (TIBRS) program from 2011 to 2013. More than 70 percent of victims were women. Across the nation, one in four women is projected to report domestic abuse at some point in their lives. Domestic violence typically involves physical, emotional, verbal, economic, and/or sexual abuse by one person against their spouse or partner.

Last Thursday, Shelby County’s Blueprint for Safety initiative was introduced during a news conference at the Urban Child Institute. Members of city and county government, local law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District’s office, Shelby County District Attorney General’s office, General Sessions Division 10, and the Family Safety Center will collectively implement the program.

The initiative seeks to enhance services provided by 911 dispatchers, law enforcement, and victim/witness services to domestic violence victims. It will also strengthen the rehabilitative efforts provided to offenders by the county’s domestic violence court.

The Blueprint for Safety is being funded by a $300,000 federal grant administered through the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office on Violence Against Women (OVM).

“The Blueprint for Safety is an approach to domestic violence cases that coordinates agency responses around the shared goals of safety and justice,” said Bea Hanson, principal deputy director of OVM. “It closes the gaps between what victims of violent crime need from the criminal justice system and the way in which the system is currently responding. The whole point of the Blueprint is to make sure that we’re keeping victims safe and holding offenders accountable.”

Memphis is the fourth city to adopt the DOJ’s Blueprint for Safety model. The initiative is already being implemented in St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota, as well as New Orleans, Louisiana.

Although it was revealed during the news conference that around 8,000 domestic violence cases occur in the Memphis area annually, the offense appears to be on the decline. According to Operation: Safe Community data, reported cases of domestic violence have decreased more than 16 percent locally since 2011.

The Family Safety Center has been connecting victims of domestic violence with civil, criminal, health, and social services since 2012.

Olliette Murry-Drobot, executive director of Family Safety Center, said the nonprofit would play a central role in helping fully implement and sustain the Blueprint for Safety initiative.

“[We] work closest with victims and have direct knowledge of the impact that the criminal justice system has in the lives of victims,” Murry-Drobot said. “Our tasks are to keep the criminal justice system focused on the experiences of victims and to ensure that their responses keep those experiences at the center of what they do.”

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News The Fly-By

Same-Sex Domestic Violence Numbers Are Up in Tennessee

Overall domestic violence numbers dropped by four percent in Tennessee since 2008, according to the latest Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) numbers. But for same-sex couples, those numbers actually saw a 44 percent increase since then.

That may not actually reflect an increase in incidents but rather an increase in reporting due to changing attitudes by the general public about homosexuality, said Phillis Lewis, a witness coordinator for the Shelby County District Attorney’s office’s domestic violence unit.

“I think people have become more comfortable reporting,” Lewis said. “I think before people were afraid of letting officers know their status and that [the perpetrator] is their significant other.”

In 2012, Lewis started the “Love Doesn’t Hurt” fund, which provides emergency funding to same-sex domestic violence victims. The money can be used to help victims with anything from housing and relocation to food and gas.

“In the first case we dealt with, the person had completely left the home and needed somewhere to go,” Lewis said. “We housed that person in a hotel for a week, and then they decided they wanted to leave Memphis. So we helped that person get out of town. We want them safe from violence. The last thing we need is another homicide.”

They also collect hygiene products to hand out to victims.

“When you’re running from your wife, you’re not going to think about grabbing some deodorant,” Lewis said.

When she started the fund two years ago, Lewis had begun noticing an increase in reported cases. But she said there was nowhere she felt comfortable sending LGBT victims for help.

“A lot of the agencies [that deal with domestic violence] are faith-based, and I sent one client to a place where, instead of focusing on the trauma she’d been through, they were focusing on her sexual orientation,” Lewis said.

Enter the Family Safety Center of Memphis and Shelby County. The one-stop shop for domestic violence victims opened in 2012, and various agencies that assist victims, such as the Shelby County Crime Victims Center and the Mid-South Sexual Assault Resource Center, are now located in one building on Madison.

The center’s executive director Oliette Drobot-Murry said she has worked to make sure the Family Safety Center is LGBT-friendly. Her staff has trained with the Tennessee Equality Project, and they partner with the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) and HIV/AIDS nonprofit, the Red Door Foundation.

“We go to [Mid-South] Pride, and we sponsor Red Door events. And now through word of mouth, we’ve had more LGBT folks coming through here,” Drobot-Murry said.

The Family Safety Center is now in charge of doling out money from the “Love Doesn’t Hurt” fund on a case-by-case basis to same-sex victims who file reports there. Although the fund is primarily raised at an annual benefit each March, Lewis said anyone can donate to the fund at any time by sending a check to the Family Safety Center and specifying that the donation should go into the “Love Doesn’t Hurt” fund.

To help prevent same-sex domestic violence, the MGLCC hosts a twice-monthly support group called Cultivating Priorities in Relationships to help people identify toxic relationships.

“I thought we should call it something other than a support group for victims because that scares people,” said Martavius Hampton, MGLCC’s HIV Services Manager. “We promote it as a healthy relationship group, so it’s like prevention rather than waiting on something to happen. We talk about what’s a positive partner and what’s abusive and controlling.”