The Emmonak Women’s Shelter got some good news last week: enough money to keep operating past July 1. The shelter received $437,000 from the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (CDVSA), through the state Department of Public Safety, to continue operating for the next 12 months.
Without this latest round of funds, Emmonak and 13 villages in the Lower Yukon area would have been without a woman’s shelter nearby.
The shelter had to shut down in January because it ran out of money. Because it was the only one in the Lower Yukon, women and children had to seek help from the Tundra Women’s Coalition over 100 miles away in Bethel.
The Emmonak shelter managed to reopen in February thanks to an emergency grant from the CDVSA that would have kept it operating until the first of July. According to the shelter’s application, they plan to use this latest round of funding to continue offering shelter and support for women and children who have been victims of domestic violence.
Correction: A previous version of this article mistakenly said the Emmonack Women's Shelter was on the Upper Kuskokwim and that the funding came through the Department of Public Health.