With state funding uncertain, Western Nevada County’s only shelter for women and children seeking refuge from domestic violence could close in July. After attending legislative hearings at the state Capitol last week, shelter manager Barbara Franklin came away worried about the future of state-funded programs that support some of California’s most vulnerable. “It’s just going to be horrendous,” Franklin said. “It’s going to be something we as a community have never seen before.” The shelter is run by the nonprofit group, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Coalition. A $200,000 grant that supports the shelter is in limbo as the state tries to solve a $24.3 billion budget deficit, said the coalition’s acting Executive Director Elizabeth McKay. The grant on hold comes from $20 million issued to 94 shelters statewide through the Battered Women’s Shelter Act, McKay said. “We know our program, for sure, is on the line,” McKay said of the shelter that opened in 2000. With few supplemental funds, the shelter would run into the red without the state grant. “If we don’t know if the funds are going to be available for the next fiscal year, we can’t run our shelter,” McKay said. The Grass Valley shelter provides a safe place for women and children leaving abusive relationships who have no where else to go. “It’s really been a lifesaver for many, many victims of domestic violence,” McKay said. Often full, the shelter is designed to take up to 12 people, including children. Each year, the shelter houses at least 75 women and children, many of whom arrive with nothing but the clothes on their back. If the Grass Valley home closed, women would have to travel to Auburn or Truckee to find a shelter. Services such as support groups and a 24-hour crisis line will remain if the shelter closes, McKay said. Economic hit at home With more people out of work, the recession has led to larger volumes of both men and women seeking services through the coalition, McKay said. “It can stress a relationship and push it over the edge,” McKay said. Women at the shelter come from all walks of life and social classes, from 71-year-old housewives who can’t take it anymore, to educated doctors and a recent flood of mail-order brides. In the past year, nine women from nine different countries have run to the shelter. One woman said she was treated “like a slave” for nine years. Another fled, running half naked down the street. She told coalition staffers she was tired of being a sex slave, Franklin said. “There’s just some horrible stuff going on,” Franklin said. Clients can stay up to 60 days at the shelter, where they receive group counseling, legal and social services and help finding a job and a place to live. “It just gives them time to heal and go on to the next part of their lives,” McKay said. Many women stay in contact with the shelter long after they have found a place of their own. Acting like surrogate mothers, coalition staff members provide babysitting, rides to doctors appointments, clothing vouchers, job and rental references, and help with attorney fees and family court, said one 30-year-old mother of three who did not want her name published. With the help of the shelter two years ago, the woman got back on her feet after leaving her abusive, mentally ill husband. “I don’t think I would be on this Earth without (the coalition), with no one else to help me but my abuser,” she said.