More than a year after My Sister’s House (MSH) sold its centralized protective shelter, the agency continues to house women and children fleeing domestic violence at hotels and other locations around the Lowcountry.
Domestic violence advocates, however, say hotel rooms isolate frightened victims from counseling and social services, removing them from support groups while making women vulnerable to abusive partners and predators who lurk outside hotel lobbies.
But Rock Amick, a Charleston wealth management consultant and former MSH board member, said the agency “is the most efficient and effective nonprofit in the Charleston area.” He places the agency on par with the Lowcountry Food Bank and One80 Place, which shelters the homeless.
In July 2022, MSH sold its 10-bedroom group shelter in North Charleston for $1.5 million, according to Charleston County property records. Since then, the agency has placed women and children in area hotels and short-term rentals.
One mother’s story
When a local younger mother with children fled this year from her home to escape her abuser, she called My Sister’s House for help.
“The hotel stay is OK for one night,” said the woman who only wanted to be identified as Paige. But she said she didn’t feel safe in a local hotel because police had not yet arrested her partner, who had choked, punched and bit her while holding her and her children hostage for a day at gunpoint.
Paige said she felt isolated in the hotel. After several stressful days with no easy access to a MSH counselor, she turned to Origin SC, a nonprofit organization that provides housing, financial and counseling services.
“I signed up for a women’s empowerment group. That was the best thing,” she said. She said MSH counselors did not voluntarily call her to ask what she needed and to provide access to healthy food.
MSH chief executive officer Tosha Connors said, “We encourage people if there is an issue to let us know immediately so we can address it. Those concerns have not been brought to my attention. We have a lot of stories of current and former clients who are satisfied with our services.”
Paige’s reaction to being sheltered in a hotel room is similar to a former MSH client who told the Charleston City Paper in September 2022 that she doubted the MSH staff could adequately provide services and ensure clients’ safety if they were scattered across the Charleston area.
Paige said she didn’t complain to the MSH staff “because I was in the process of losing my job, and I was paranoid. That consumed my brain. I was trying to keep myself level for my children.”
A glowing compliment
In February, another former MSH client sent the agency a handwritten note to compliment it for the services she received.
“After a series of unfortunate events unfolded in my life, I reached out to the My Sister’s House Organization in hopes to receive guidance, shelter, and most of all… safety,” the client wrote. “To my surprise, I received much more from the organization! I was immediately offered a multitude of resources, therapy, basic hygiene and personal items; most importantly of all, SAFE HOUSING!!”
Paige’s experience, Amick said, “is not in line with what I’ve heard and seen. Things are going pretty well. I have absolute faith in Tosha’s leadership. [MSH] has an incredible staff. There isn’t anyone else providing the same level of service for the victims of domestic violence.”
Lisa Kennedy, outreach coordinator for the nonprofit Palmetto Hope Network, however, insisted that hotel rooms are not a good option long term.
“They may have a few clients who say it is wonderful, but if they knew or have experienced the alternative, they might see it differently. Your needs are met on so many different levels when you are in a [central] facility,” she said.
To support her contention that hotels are unsafe, Kennedy referred to an interview with Ruth Glenn, chief executive and president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Glenn said when families arrive at a hotel the staff may insist on seeing identification and log the client’s names. That places domestic violence victims at risk of being discovered by an abuser because hotel staff are not trained advocates and they could inadvertently expose a family’s identity.
Changing trend statewide?
One in four women and one in seven men, aged 18 and older in the United States, have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime, according to the National Domestic Violence.
In South Carolina, the State Law Enforcement Division reported that from 2020 to 2021, intimate partner murders jumped by 13.7%.
MSH served about 200 clients in 2022, Connors estimated. “We are in the process of working with our staff to gather all the data and figure out which things are working well and which things we need to continue to amend or change,” she said.
Evolving times
Paige said after she left the hotel and found housing without MSH’s help, the agency repeatedly called her to complete a post-service checklist.
“Everything was about business, business, business,” she said, snapping her fingers. But they didn’t initiate calls to her for counseling, food and legal help, Paige said.
My Sister’s House reported in 2021 it had $1.95 million in revenue and $800,000 in liabilities, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. MSH also reported $2.49 million in assets in the year before the shelter was sold.
Until recently, MSH was one of a few agencies that advocated for domestic violence victims in South Carolina that placed its clients in hotels. That trend could change, as explained by S.C. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an Orangeburg Democrat, who operates a domestic violence shelter in Orangeburg.
“We are housing women and children in local hotels while a facility is being renovated, said Cobb-Hunter, CEO of CASA/Family Systems, a family violence nonprofit that serves Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun counties.
“One of the things we learned from the pandemic is that shelter programs have to have a variety of options,” she said. “The pandemic impacted shelters just as it did other places of employment. It is tough finding workers. We are short staffed, but we still attempt to provide the case management services we did when the shelter was open.”
Cobb-Hunter said she’s not opposed to scattered-site housing of domestic violence victims. Sheltering has evolved, and the idea of putting women and children in one facility is giving way to finding housing for families so they can become self-sufficient. Also, she said, not all hotels will accept women with children.
“I will not be on the side of those who are condemning My Sister’s House for closing its shelter,” she said. “The notion of sheltering has changed and is evolving.”
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