Inside the Haven
Written By: Michael Harris
The Haven is a domestic violence and sexual assault center that cares for mostly women, but men as well. The Haven was established in 1977 and has offered a safe place for domestic violence victims for more than 30 years.
The Haven provides 24-hour hotlines for immediate crisis intervention. Available to victims and their children is temporary emergency shelter, food, clothing, transportation, and counseling (both individual and group).
“We serve about 13,000 to 15,000 people per year,” Executive Director Kelly Smallridge says. “That’s with all of the programs we have. Most of the people who come to us are local and come through the public outreach.”
The shelter provides a 12-week program in which those abused can live in The Haven’s private facility and have available to them continuing services include health, housing, education and employment referrals.
“If you come to us at 2 a.m. and all you have is your children and your nightgown, you may not be able to start your whole life over in 12 weeks. If you have no job, no money no car, no nothing, then at the end of the 12 weeks we can take you into transitional housing. And they can stay up to 36 months.”
During that time in transitional housing, individuals can go to school and save money to get an apartment. Transitional living is for those requiring longer term physical and/or emotional healing.
“Like I said they may come to us with absolutely nothing and have no way to acquire that stuff,” Kelly says. “We take donations from the public like household goods. Anything you would use in your house, we use here. We take as much as we can because when these people move out we can’t afford to go buy new stuff for everybody.”
Kelly keeps a board in her office with a list of clients and their needs such as furniture for themselves or bedroom sets for the children.
They have two programs, one for domestic violence and one for sexual assault, that each offer individual and group sessions for men, women and children.
Kelly adds they have classes on parenting, substance abuse classes and jail groups to avoid further offenses. There are also classes to help in the job market, like resume writing and computer skills classes.
“Anything that will help further someone educationally so they can go out and get a job,” she says.
Kelly says Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday are the worst days for the emergency shelter.
“Unfortunately just add alcohol to any family occasion and guess what you get?” she says. “This past Christmas I had 74 people come in and sleep in the shelter. I’ve got people sleeping on mattresses on the floor as well as on the sofas because we do not turn people away.”
For Donations:
Haven of Lake & Sumter Counties, Inc.
P.O. Box 492335
Leesburg, FL
34749
On the Web:
www.havenlakesumter.org
Haven’s Domestic Violence Hotline:
(352) 753-5800
Haven’s Sexual Assault Hotline:
(352) 787-1379
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