Safe House cut reduces shelter space in half

The only emergency shelter in Yuma County, the Safe House is struggling financially after receiving a reduction in their main funding source, the Arizona Department of economic security.

The money reduced from their funding goes as much as $117,000 dollars. The reduced funding level is expected for the next few years, as of now, it is a five-year contract.

This is one of the reasons why the Safe House has now resorted to finding funding through other avenues.

Safe House still provides services outside of their shelter. Their services continue as they are helping victims with anything from paperwork, to court and anything they might need. The only downfall now is the room situation.

According to Jodie Wight, this forced the shelter to make staff cuts for their staff and reduce the number of people that they serve each night and year.

“We were a 40-bed shelter now we are a 20-bed shelter due to these funding cuts,” shared Jodie Wight.

Victims can stay at the Safe House anywhere from one day up to four months. Last year almost 600 people came through the shelter, but reducing the shelter capacity from 40 to 20 has made a significant decrease in shelter services.

“We’ve had had to move into more innovative ways mobile and community based and going out and meeting clients in the community versus housing them in the shelter,” expressed Jodie Wight.

Despite the cut through grants and help from the community, Safe House has been able to keep their services going. One example out of many is the $5,000 plus the shelter has received in tax credit contributions from the community. Taxpayers can contribute to the organization and report it as a charitable contribution and get credit in their state taxes.

Overall the community is still accepting donations.

The facility is still at about a $30,000 deficit and with the upcoming fiscal year beginning in July, it will bring many challenges.