Becky’s Place Haven of Hope, the local safe house for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, almost closed this year due to lack of funding, said owner and operator Jackie Mazeikas.
Becky’s Place is a nonprofit that has housed more than 30 victims of domestic violence each year since at least 2016. Police chief Heath Scott attested to the importance of Becky’s Place in the community. “I don’t have a special place to protect victims,” he said, “(The police) take a special interest in court directed actions, but there’s no kind of safe place in the community for victims of domestic violence outside of Becky’s Place.”
Mazeikas, who has been at the forefront of this issue in the community for more than 15 years, created the safe house in honor of her sister, Becky, who was killed by a violent partner. For the past two years, Becky’s Place has received $8,000 from the borough’s community chest grant. It receives annual donations from three local churches, and monthly individual donations of between $10 and $100 a month. Still, with an annual budget of $23,832, Becky’s Place depends on donations during its summer fundraiser and around Christmas.
“This last Christmas, for whatever reason donations were really down. We don’t understand why,” Mazeikas said. “I wasn’t sure we’d be able to commit for another year.”
Becky’s Place lacked $3,000 to $4,000 of their usual Christmas donations, which amounts to about two months of operating costs for the safe house. “We got a wonderful large donation in January, and that just allowed us to breathe a little bit,” said Mazeikas. One individual’s donation of $5,000 will allow Becky’s Place to operate through 2019. Mazeikas said that the precariousness of this situation made her realize that, in order to create a permanent shelter for victims of domestic violence, she will need to take it to the next level. “We need a house,” she said.
Becky’s Place is a rented-out space with a high insurance cost that Mazeikas said is typical of safe houses. 53 percent of its yearly operating costs are spent on rent ($8,400) and insurance ($4,258). The reason for the steep insurance cost is the danger of operating domestic violence safe houses, said Mazeikas. Victims flee potentially deadly situations, and perpetrators often try to follow them. On several occasions, the Haines Police Department has patrolled around Becky’s Place. “We would save money with a house. We would save a tremendous amount on what we pay to our landlord on insurance,” she said.
The summer fundraiser, which includes an auction of donated goods, may bring her closer to this goal. Mazeikas noted one item in particular, which she also shared on the Becky’s Place Facebook page: an elaborately designed wooden canoe paddle, inlaid with copper, valued at $1,000 to $1,500. Inmates of Lemon Creek Correctional Center, a state prison in Juneau, carved the paddle, and Bill Bennett, president of the board of directors of Helping Ourselves Prevent Emergencies (H.O.P.E.), donated it to Becky’s Place.
After a visit to Haines this year, Bennett wanted to give it to Becky’s Place. “It really touched my heart when I talked with Jackie,” he said. Not knowing that Becky’s Place had narrowly avoided closure, Bennett, a resident of Craig, said that he was well aware of the struggle to fund nonprofits in small communities.
Bennett reached out to the Sealaska Carving Program, which works closely with the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility. For the past seven years, Sealaska has been donating wood and materials to Lemon Creek for the inmates to create artwork. Their artwork is then donated to nonprofits throughout Southeast. Bennett said it teaches Lemon Creek residents valuable skills and raises funds for good causes.
“Most of the residents there are going to be back in our communities (when they are released), and to give back to those communities is a huge thing for them,” he said. Some of the Lemon Creek residents are perpetrators of domestic violence themselves, said Bennett, so this is a particularly valuable way that inmates can reconnect with society, helping domestic violence prevention organizations.
“Domestic violence tears at the underlying fabric of our communities. Organizations like Becky’s Place hold that together,” said Bennett.
“We’ve never missed paying our rent and our bills and our overhead,” she said, but, “If the funds don’t come in, our doors won’t stay open.”
Mazeikas said that she hopes to raise at least $10,000 through the summer fundraiser, which will take place on June 8 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the ANB Hall. It will include dinner for $15 a plate and a silent auction.