CDC endorses emergency funding recommendation for Safe Alliance to preserve Eloise House and shelter operations

The Community Development Commission on July 21 voted to endorse a recommendation from the Hispanic Latino Quality of Life Resource Advisory Commission urging emergency funding for Safe Alliance, the nonprofit that operates Eloise House and a domestic violence shelter.

Commissioner Longoria presented the recommendation and explained that the proposed funding — $430,000 to preserve Eloise House as a community-based forensic exam site and $200,000 for shelter operations — responds to a funding gap that would otherwise shift forensic exams to hospitals. Longoria said hospitals could reintroduce cost and access barriers and raised concern about state policy that could require hospital staff to ask victims about immigration status.

Longoria reported that Safe Alliance conducts about 600 forensic exams a year, that approximately 95% of the region’s exams take place at Eloise House, and that about half of the clients identify as Hispanic/Latinx. Commissioners discussed how the CDC’s endorsement would be forwarded; the commission voted to adopt the recommendation as written and to send it to Council along with CDC support.

Several commissioners asked the CDC to keep monitoring the city’s transition plan, should Council or the mayor pursue moving exams into hospital settings, and to follow shelter funding and service continuity going forward.

Quoted: "These forensic exams would immediately go down" if exams are shifted to hospitals, Commissioner Longoria said, arguing for continued community‑based forensic services at Eloise House.