Tucson’s Emerge Center – A safer shelter for victims of domestic abuse – Pima Recovers | Pima County Government
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Tucson’s Emerge Center – A safer shelter for victims of domestic abuse

For many community organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed ongoing problems to a breaking point. Prior to the pandemic, Tucson’s Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse, which provides emergency housing and other services to victims of domestic violence, was one of several agencies in Pima County struggling to provide shelter to vulnerable people without adequate space to meet demand.

At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the agency’s emergency shelter consisted of 13 congregate housing units, said Emerge CEO Ed Sakwa.

“It’s not a great model for people in crisis,” he said, noting that the shelter’s residents—women and children fleeing abusive situations—would have to share living spaces with strangers.

Still, the congregate units offered a way to maximize capacity in the limited space. Sakwa said the demand for shelter virtually always exceeds what is available, and the congregate units represented a kind of compromise.

The arrival of COVID-19, however, made that situation untenable.

“We had people requesting shelter, but choosing to remain in their abusive situations,” said Sakwa, describing what led to the agency’s decision to close the congregate shelter in mid-2020 and instead set up temporary non-congregate units in a leased space.

The temporary shelter provides privacy and alleviates some of the concerns about spreading the virus. But it has been problematic in other ways, explained Sakwa. “It’s super expensive,” he said. “It’s just hard to operate out of somebody else’s for-profit business.”

Sakwa also noted that the leased temporary quarters provided no communal space, an opposite extreme with unintended consequences. “There’s nothing communal,” he said. “There’s not the same opportunity for relationship-building.”

Thanks in part to the American Rescue Plan Act, Emerge will soon begin construction on a newly renovated shelter, designed to meet its unique needs.

In September of 2021 the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 5 – 0 to contribute $1 million in ARPA funds toward the renovation and expansion of Emerge’s shelter facilities. In a separate but contingent agreement, the Tucson City Council voted to contribute $1 million of its own ARPA funds.

The total cost of Emerge’s shelter renovation project is estimated at $3.5 million. In addition to the combined $2 million from Pima County and the City of Tucson, the Connie Hillman Family Foundation has pledged to provide $1 million, and the Emerge Center expects to raise the remaining $500,000 through community fundraising efforts.

The new shelter will feature non-congregate rooms, each with its own bathroom and kitchenette. It is expected to increase the facility’s overall capacity from 51 beds to 84, via 28 individual housing units.

Sakwa said the project is still in a preparatory stage, and that construction is still months away. But he is enthusiastic about what the finished project will bring.

“It will be the best of both worlds,” he said. “A communal environment where each family can have their own space, but also shared spaces for support meetings and things like that… We have been incredibly fortunate to make what we thought was a dream a reality.”

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