As Staff Repeatedly Refuse Shelter to Victims of Domestic/Sexual Violence, SafeHouse Center Holds Fundraiser

by P.D. Lesko

There are public calls for the Board members to step down. The Executive Director is on administrative leave. The non-profit facility, in photos and videos taken by residents, staff and interns, has been shown to be unsafe and unsanitary. There are empty food cupboards, and filthy freezers crammed with out-of-date food. Its Executive Director and Board are under investigation for, among other allegations, taking millions in tax dollars and public donations and not providing a safe shelter or critical services to domestic/sexual violence survivors and their children. Despite all this, on October 9 SafeHose Center went ahead with its annual Purple Run Fundraiser. As participants enjoyed donuts provided before the start of the event, Barbara McQuade, in her comments to the approximately 125 people present, identified herself as a “proud member of the SafeHouse Board of Directors.”

The evening before the Purple Run, survivors evicted from SafeHouse and made homeless in August and September, housed at the expense of the County Board of Commissioners, contacted The Ann Arbor Independent to say that they had no food. County Administrator (and SafeHouse Center Board member) Greg Dill had been directed 72 hours earlier by the Board of Commissioners to come up with a plan to use $75,000 in funding allocated on October 6 to meet the emergency needs of the women and children. His failure to do so left survivors hungry. The Ann Arbor Independent provided the women food. Susan E. Shink, Chair of the County’s Board of Commissioners, in a text, promised that she would “connect with [the women]” and would be “getting them what they need.”

McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District and a member of the U-M Law School faculty, added that, “This event is about survivors and your participation today…through the the funds we raise today, will help support them.” McQuade, who is aware of allegations that SafeHouse staff have repeatedly made survivors homeless through neglecting to provide services to help them find stable housing, said, “I also want to thank the staff and volunteers of SafeHouse Center. They work tirelessly at thankless work.”

About a week before the Purple Run fundraiser at which McQuade praised SafeHouse staff, Frances Branham, 62 and disabled, along with her six-year-old grandson went to the door of SafeHouse to seek shelter. Her abusive husband had locked her out of their home. She and her grandson had no food, shelter and only the clothing on their backs.

“I went to the SafeHouse door and used the phone there to talk to someone inside the shelter,” said Branham. “They asked if I was fleeing an abusive relationship, and I said I was. Then the woman said they had no room for us. I had to spend the last of my money on a room at the Victory Inn.” Branham said she had also contacted SafeHouse by phone, hoping that she would get a different answer. She didn’t. The non-profit Enough Initiative found Branham shelter and provided her with food.

As a direct result of the actions of the SafeHouse staffers who refused Branham shelter when the facility is almost empty, and Board members like McQuade, who are aware victims are being turned away from an almost empty shelter, a few days later Frances Branham went back to her abuser. Her six-year-old grandson was taken into custody by Child Protective Services.

Despite being aware of the allegations of mismanagement and the investigation, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, County Prosecutor Eli Savit, SafeHouse Board members Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District, as well as Eddie Washington, Jr., Executive Director Department of Public Safety and Security at the University of Michigan, all spoke to the approximately 125 people gathered at the Purple Run. Only Rep. Dingell alluded, albeit obliquely, to the allegations against SafeHouse when she told those present, “We need a safe house for victims.”

SafeHouse Executive director Barbara Niess-May was not present. She was put on paid administrative leave on October 6. Her salary is $118,990, according to the most recent 990 tax return filed with the IRS. The SafeHouse Board of Directors hired an independent investigator to look into the allegations published by The Ann Arbor Independent in July and August 2021. The Board had initially engaged Michelle Crockett, an attorney with Miller Canfield. On September 30, The Ann Arbor Independent contacted Crockett, who was hired as an adjunct (temporary) faculty member by the U-M Law School, to ask if she had been recruited or had any professional or personal relationship with Barbara McQuade, a faculty member at the Law School. On October 6, in a public statement, Miller Canfield announced the firm had decided to withdraw from the investigation:

“SafeHouse engaged Miller Canfield to conduct an independent internal investigation. Since that retention, the firm has learned that it has pre- existing affiliations with certain institutions that employ select SafeHouse board members and that those affiliations may give others in the public cause to question the firm’s ability to effectively conduct the investigation. Although the firm does not believe that these pre-existing affiliations create a conflict of interest that would preclude the firm from undertaking a fair and impartial investigation, the firm wants to avoid the possibility that its involvement could potentially jeopardize the public’s trust in the investigative process and/or cast even the slightest doubt as to the integrity of SafeHouse’s management or board. Thus, it is out of an abundance of caution that we respectfully withdraw our representation.”

McQuade’s comments hid from the public present the facts that SafeHouse staff have made victims of domestic violence evicted from SafeHouse homeless, that SafeHouse staffers evicted a victim of sexual violence whose life was endangered by an assailant who was, weeks later, remanded to the Washtenaw County jail on a $3 million cash bond. McQuade’s comments lauding SafeHouse staff for their “tireless work” also ignored the fact that at its October 6, 2021 meeting, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a last-minute resolution that allocated $75,000 to provide services to the women and children SafeHouse Center had evicted in August and September 2021. In the case of several of the women, they had been summarily evicted in retaliation for speaking to The Ann Arbor Independent.

SafeHouse Board member Eddie Washington, Jr. also spoke at the Purple Run. Like McQuade, Washington said nothing about the fact that he was fundraising for a non-profit that is not providing the shelter and services its staff and Board members are telling the public are provided. To the 125 people at the run, Washington praised law enforcement, and with respect to the eradication of domestic violence said, “We still have opportunities to do better.”

Beginning in February 2021, and as recently as September, survivors housed at SafeHouse Center, Washtenaw County’s domestic violence shelter, have provided first-hand accounts which allege SafeHouse staff provide few of the services the shelter’s website and annual reports claim are provided. Survivors, SafeHouse staff and interns also provided videos, dozens of photos and audio recordings to corroborate their allegations of dangerous mismanagement, unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the shelter.

County Prosecutor Eli Savit, also aware of the allegations against SafeHouse’s Executive Director, staff and Board members, told those present that “rooting out domestic violence takes all of us. It takes the community coming together and this is precisely why this such a great and important event.” He went on to thank the sponsors of the event. Savit concluded his remarks by saying, “Let’s send a clear message that domestic violence has no place in Washtenaw County or anyplace else.”

Savit’s office was a sponsor of the SafeHouse Purple Run. When asked why his office was sponsoring a fundraising event for SafeHouse Center when the shelter was under investigation for turning victims and children away at the door and over the phone by claiming the almost empty shelter was “full,” Savit had no answer.

When asked what the Purple Run money would be used for, if the shelter was providing neither shelter nor services to victims, Savit pivoted the conversation to the $75,000 allocated by the County Commissioners. Savit then said that domestic violence victims in need of help can email his office. When pressed, he admitted emails are not answered on weekends, or outside of business hours. The only 24-hour helpline in the County is SafeHouse Center. Savit also pointed out his office provides Victim’s Advocates.

Multiple domestic and sexual abuse survivors have described Savit’s Victim’s Advocates, individuals who are supposed to help victims through the process of the criminal prosecution of their assailants, as “worse than useless, inept and uninformed.” One survivor claimed her Victim’s Advocate had cajoled her to perjure herself in order for the Prosecutor’s Office to pursue the prosecution of a man who is not guilty of assaulting the survivor. The woman provided multiple text messages between herself and the advocate to corroborate her allegation. In those messages, the woman repeatedly points out to Savit’s Victim’s Advocate that the woman is asking the survivor to “lie in court.”

In January of 2021, Savit scrapped the system of seeking cash bail. According to Savit’s January directive, cash bail “is a system under which a defendant who has been accused of a crime is required to post money in order to secure release from jail pending trial.” Savit directed assistant prosecuting attorneys to no longer request cash bond in any case and instead to make case-by-case assessments to determine the defendants’ flight disk and dangerousness in order to ensure public safety.

While running for office, and on his campaign website, Savit told voters the elimination of cash bail “means your tax dollars will no longer be used to lock people up who pose little danger. It means you can rest easy, knowing that your elected prosecutor is going after wrongdoers who pose a real threat to your well-being.”

Savit then elected to stop requesting cash bail for those accused of domestic violence. Domestic violence activists say Savit’s policy has meant almost immediate release of abusers back into their communities with the freedom to threaten their victims.

In her comments, Rep. Debbie Dingell related her own childhood incidents of having lived through domestic violence. She made a point of saying that after her father had threatened to shoot and murder his wife and children, he was arrested, but released the next day.

“That’s how things were handled back then,” Dingell told the crowd, referring to the 1950s.

When told that Savit’s no cash bail policy has resulted in the same outcomes for domestic abusers and victims in Washtenaw County, Dingell was stunned. After a moment, she said, “I didn’t know that.” She then suggested that Savit needed to rethink his no cash bail policy as it applies to those accused of domestic violence. Domestic abusers not only commit violent crimes, they pose an immediate danger to their victims. In September 2021, the governor of Texas signed a bill requiring cash bail for those accused of violent crimes, including domestic violence.

Of the Purple Run participants interviewed before the start of the event, only one individual was aware of the SafeHouse Center investigation. Lea Donoghue is a former SafeHouse Center staffer and presently a Victim’s Advocate with the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s office. Donoghue said she was participating because, “It’s important to show support.”