By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff Writer
A regional housing authority that serves Beaufort County and six other counties is taking steps to take over the duties of sheltering domestic violence victims who were once served by a domestic violence-prevention group that closed its doors.
The Mid-East Regional Housing Authority, which owns and manages 366 public housing units in seven eastern North Carolina counties, has begun discussions with the N.C. Council for Women/Domestic Violence Commission for approval to shelter domestic-violence victims in Beaufort, Hyde, Martin, Tyrrell and Washington counties, according to the housing agency’s executive director, Marc Recko.
The housing authority hopes to “iron out all of the details” of the move by July 1, 2010, in order to receive grant funding to operate shelters for domestic-violence victims and programs to prevent domestic violence, Recko said.
“The state has looked as us very favorably, so far,” he said.
Before it closed earlier this year, the Washington-based Options to Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault was charged with providing services to domestic violence victims in the five counties of the 2nd Judicial District — Beaufort, Hyde, Martin, Washington and Tyrrell counties.
Recko said providing shelter for domestic-violence victims would fit well with the mission of the housing authority, which is charged with providing “safe, quality and affordable housing” to low- and moderate-income families and “self-sufficiency” in those same five counties, along with Bertie and Pitt counties.
The Mid-East Regional Housing Authority Board of Directors is expected to consider the proposal at a future date, he said.
The move, if approved, would once again provide a local shelter for domestic-violence victims in Beaufort County.
Services for the county’s domestic-violence victims have been provided by the Family Violence Program in Pitt County since Options closed its doors because of a lack of funding. Dare County-based Outer Banks Hotline has taken over services in Hyde and Tyrrell counties, also previously provided by Options, hotline officials have said.
Local domestic-violence volunteers said the Pitt County shelter is often full, leaving Beaufort County victims nowhere to go. And they said that it’s important to house adults near their places of work and children near their schools.
Victims’ advocates also said the best scenario is for any agency that serves domestic-violence victims to have the same service area as the 2nd Judicial District, since protection orders and other legal proceedings for Beaufort, Hyde, Martin, Tyrrell and Washington counties take place within that district.
Funding for domestic-violence services in North Carolina has already been distributed for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, so it likely would be the next fiscal year before the housing authority could assume those services in the five-county region, according to Recko.
In the weeks since Options closed, several members of its board of directors, including its president, Delma Blinson, and three other members resigned.
Seth Edwards, district attorney for the 2nd Judicial District and an Options board member, was appointed as a caretaker president to oversee the dissolution of the board and the agency’s assets and debts.
“I’m assuming that at some point, we will dissolve,” said Edwards in a recent interview.
Options owns two houses — one that served as a shelter and another that housed administrative offices for the Options staff, Edwards said. As caretaker president of Options, he will oversee the transfer of those properties and other assets and the payment of any agency debts, Edwards said.
“Everybody is committed to the domestic-violence cause. We know we need services for these victims and the victims will lose if we leave it like it is,” he said. “I am interested in the best way to get the shelter services back as soon as possible.”