The Sanctuary Web Platform provides real-time access to emergency housing for the displaced due to domestic violence, disaster, or crisis.
What We Do
Sanctuary PBC is a mission-driven public benefit corporation that helps first responders, advocates, and service organizations rapidly and securely place displaced domestic violence victims into immediate emergency housing.
We offer a trauma-informed SaaS platform that provides real-time visibility into hotel room capacity. This platform is designed to empower individuals and communities in crisis. The platform is built on methodology and data gathered through years of direct input from domestic violence survivors with lived experience.
Statistics you should know…
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It takes a homeless family 6 to 10 months to secure permanent housing after leaving their violence.
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63% of unhoused women experience domestic or sexual violence.
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Approximately 15.5 million children in the U.S. are exposed to intimate partner violence each year.
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The estimated lifetime cost of intimate partner violence is $103,767 per female victim and $23,414 per male victim, totaling nearly $3.6 trillion over a victims' lifetime.
The WHY behind the WORK
Why Sanctuary addresses this housing and displacement problem for victims?
Victims of domestic violence and their families face significant challenges when they leave their abusive relationships. The primary reason for these challenges is the lack of space in overcrowded shelters and inadequate supporting resources (food insecurity, transportation, etc).
They often become unhoused and experience permanent displacement, leading to housing insecurity, loss of network, employment and more.
If the problem of housing insecurity is not addressed promptly, it can result in insurmountable hardship, financial ruin, and even the return to escalated violence.
Temporary immediate housing and resources are crucial for victims to stabilize and recover immediately after leaving their abuse.
What first responders face when they assist a victim and attempt to find them a safe place to stay?
When a first responder or advocate arrives at the scene of an aggravated assault or domestic violence call, they face a challenging situation.
Often, both the abuser and the survivor are present, or the abuser is nearby and knows every place the victim might flee.
The faster and more efficiently the first responder or advocate can find a safe haven for the victim, the higher the chances of the victim permanently escaping the violence.
This is why we have built a network of hotel partners that will house these victims at a moment’s notice while they come up with a plan for what’s next.
What happens to victims who can not find immediate shelter?
Finding a safe place to place a victim is real issue and can take hours and even days for law enforcement and service providers. Often these victims have nowhere to go because their abuser knows the victim’s routine, where they work, their network of family and friends, and will stalk and harass these victims.
Out of desperation, many victims will return home to their abusers, often to intensified violence and 13% of those victims die at the hands of their abusers.
The alarming number of victims who become permanently unhoused and displaced due to the financial costs of relocation and start their lives over grows exponentially annually.
Often in the middle of the night, victims are forced to leave, break their leases to escape violence, which further deteriorates their credit scores. They MUST leave, making a devastating financial decision that will adversely affect them for years and even decades.
