Content Warning: This article discusses domestic violence. If you are in distress and need someone to talk to, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Domestic violence shelters in Texas and the U.S. can’t always meet the demand they face nightly. Often, this means survivors are turned away, either back to a dangerous home or just onto the streets.
According to Austin’s The SAFE Alliance, as many as 100 people are turned away on any given night.
However, an Austin survivor has built a new tool that domestic violence shelters can use instead when they reach capacity. Called Sanctuary, it’s a SaaS (software as a service) platform that offers hotel capacity within a certain radius of the shelter.
Sanctuary Founder Courtney Santana said that it was based on her own experience of leaving an abusive relationship. She said she also served on SAFE’s foundation board previously.
“I faced housing insecurity 25 years ago with my children,” she said. “We basically lived in our car, so after I got into the shelter and I got out, I decided that I was going to focus my energy and I felt like my mission was going to become how to deal with housing security for victims of abuse who are trying to escape.”
Santana said that Sanctuary started as a nonprofit group directly placing survivors in hotels that would provide rooms for free. That effort soon grew into a public benefit corporation that Santana said she hopes can expand into nationwide use.
“When we realized that this was a national problem, that every state has this issue with shelter overcrowding, we decided we’re going to turn it into a technology piece,” she said.
Sanctuary isn’t a tool that survivors can directly access; rather, it’s meant for shelters, support organizations, and law enforcement agencies.
“We are a complement to a shelter, we actually will help them to get more capacity to serve more people. We were just using hotels as our inventory, so that double s and triples the size and the number of beds that are available,” Santana explained.
Having a place to stay after escaping from abuse is critical for survivors, she said. Without a secure and safe place to stay, survivors face a hard choice of whether to return. According to Sanctuary, 13% of those who returned to an abusive home were killed by their abuser.
Currently, Sanctuary has a “House a Million” fundraising drive, which aims to provide shelter and resources from over 250 families annually.
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