Shelter in place portends domestic violence in San Mateo County

“We were perplexed but quickly realized that was a bad sign. People are locked in a room with an abuser and don’t have a chance to call,” said Daniel Holloway, marketing officer with CORA which stands for Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse. 

Data for March this year was similar to numbers from last year, and April numbers seem to not lend very much insight either, said Milissa Gibbs, manager of legal services at CORA.

“Now for the month of April we’re seeing an increase but nothing to suggest there’s something happening. The coronavirus is making it harder, and I wouldn’t be surprised if once everything is over we’ll see a greater increase of accessing our services at that point,” said Gibbs.

Going remote

CORA has been serving San Mateo County since 2003 and currently offers an array of services such as shelters, rehousing assistance, legal assistance and a 24-hour crisis hotline. 

Concerns of spreading the infectious virus have forced the organization to limit movement in and out of its shelters, opting to place survivors with hotel rooms when possible. Most other services have transitioned to telehealth in place of face-to-face counseling, made possible by a loosening of HIPAA regulations. 

Typically, someone would enter CORA’s housing system and it would help work them into getting safe housing or an apartment of their own, said Colsaria Henderson, executive director of CORA.

“We’re in a place where that’s not possible. It’s a long-term problem. The domestic violence sector was not prepared to handle that,” Henderson said. “We can’t indefinitely only be using hotel rooms for an infinite period of time for financial reasons. I’m projecting a mass deficit from COVID-19 and the use of hotel rooms, cost of allocating food delivery, all those pieces.”

Having never dealt with a major catastrophe, CORA was faced with rapidly adapting services to digitally connect with a community already difficult to reach. Holloway said partnerships with other organizations familiar with disaster work during localized events like Hurricane Katrina has helped the transition, but Henderson said the switch was still difficult. 

“Unfortunately, going remote quickly, that was a place in which we were not prepared and had not thought about having virtual group sessions. We’re still providing a bulk of our services,” said Henderson. “As we look at the long-term strategies of the world around us and the move to virtual services, we’re going to need to invest a little more.”

Safe access

Henderson said the organization will begin offering group sessions again starting next week after signing HIPAA privacy agreements with Zoom, a video conference platform. The reconfigured program comes with a how-to guide on safe practices for survivors participating in the sessions. 

Services are readily available online but accessing them is another matter. Shelter orders mean extended time spent at home with large portions of the population either working remote or unemployed all together. As a result, opportunities of alone time that once existed when an abuser would be out of the house have been severely reduced.   

“We don’t see people with the same opportunity to leave the house or find an excuse to call or come in. Typically, if someone takes two buses to get here to our office, to access services like ours, you come with a purpose. If you could access services over the phone, you wouldn’t have come all this way,” said Henderson. “What keeps me up at night is thinking of the survivor who can’t safely get to us. Without our staff doing mobile advocacy work, we’re concerned about missing folks.” 

Legal services

In an effort to disseminate vital information, CORA has partnered with legal service providers including Bay Area Legal Aid, the San Mateo County Bar Association, ADZ Law and the San Mateo County Law Library and Foundation to organize telephone sessions between experienced domestic violence attorneys and survivors attempting to navigate the legal system. 

“When the pandemic first started, at our firm we recognized how it was affecting our clients with restitution cases, visitation, restraining orders, hearings, similar subjects and we figured if our clients were experiencing it, the world at large must be experiencing it too,” said Jessica Dayton, founding partner of ADZ Law, a firm based in San Mateo serving the greater Bay Area.  

Topics covered in the sessions will include safety planning, clarifications on orders considered an “emergency,” advice on navigating custody exchange, recommendations on how to file court forms and filing for protections. Although courthouses are closed, protective orders are one of few filings still being processed. 

Readily available

“They don’t need to stay with an abuser during the coronavirus. Our services are available and they can call our hotline,” said Holloway. 

Crisis hotlines are in operation through CORA and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. 

Henderson and Holloway both said CORA is focused on informing survivors that resources are still readily available. 

“If you’re in an abusive relationship and are in a household with an abuser, call while you’re out for groceries, when you’re going on a walk, sitting in a car. Make a phone call if you can find an excuse to be alone or when they’re out. Call us. We will help regardless of what we have. Despite the fact we don’t have the resources we need. We are still providing services,” Henderson said. “We will not turn anyone that needs shelter away.”

If you feel you are in serious danger please call 911. Call (800) 300-1080 to access CORA’s 24-hour hotline or visit corasupport.org for more resources. To access the National Domestic Violence Hotline call (800) 799-7233 or (800) 787-3224 for TTY. If you’re unable to speak safely, you can log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 22522. Visit smclawlibrary.org for more information on how to register to speak with an experienced domestic violence attorney.