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The doors will be reopening later this month to a very different Madeline’s House. Shut down in November 2022, the domestic violence and sexual assault shelter changed owners as well, with STEPS taking over from the Southside Center for Violence Prevention (SCVP). Repairs and renovations have taken place over the last two years, as well as training and recruitment, with a new director, Linda Ellis-Williams, and staff now in place. 

And the new program goes beyond the shelter. That’s part of why it’s taken so long to reopen. In addition to physical renovations and finding the funds to operate, STEPS is building a long-term program, one focused on both intervention and prevention. 

“It’s not just (about) operating a domestic violence shelter,” said STEPS President/CEO Sharon Harrup. “That’s one piece of running a sexual assault, domestic violence program. The other pieces are going to court, the case management of helping the victims through that legal process. It is therapy sessions, it is setting up trauma informed care for the victims and their children.”

But all of that starts with a building. Before a program can be assembled, it needs a place to operate. And while STEPS took over from the previous operation, they didn’t get anything for free. A donation of more than half a million dollars from Ellery and Robin Sedgwick helped STEPS buy the building, but in the beginning, it was very much a shell. 

“When we bought the building, I thought the shelter would still have furniture in it,” Harrup said. “But it had not a stick of furniture. All the appliances had been removed, the house generator had been removed, even the privacy fence around the property had been cut down. When I say there was nothing there, it was empty.” 

What caused Madeline’s House shutdown? 

Before we go into renovations, let’s clear up the operation’s history. The domestic violence and sexual assault shelter known as Madeline’s House has been functioning for more than a decade, focusing on Amelia, Buckingham, Cumberland, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway and Prince Edward Counties, while also providing emergency services to Brunswick, Charlotte, Dinwiddie, Halifax and Powhatan counties. 

In the summer of 2022, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) stopped funding the project, saying they had concerns about some actions taken by Southside employees. DCJS is the state agency that monitors groups receiving federal grants, to make sure the money is used for the authorized purposes and that everything is in compliance with federal statutes and regulations. 

DCJS originally sent a letter on March 29, 2022, warning that funding could be suspended. According to the letter, this was in light of a March 8, 2022 incident. A SCVP staffer accompanied a sexual assault victim for a forensic medical exam, the letter said. The staffer digitally recorded the exam at Centra Health in Lynchburg reportedly without the knowledge or consent of the victim.

The agency also pointed to a Nov. 2021 site visit, where officials found inconsistencies in financial management practices and internal control weaknesses at the nonprofit. They accused Southside officials of submitting multiple requests for unjustified costs and projects, low service numbers based on the service area that covers seven counties and frequent and ongoing turnover in grant-funded staff and Board of Directors members.

The state agency offered a corrective action plan, to help Southside get back on its feet. The plan set goals to help SCVP work on creating consistent financial management practices, acquire adequate staffing levels and have all hired staff and approved volunteers trained. By June 21, 2022, the Criminal Justice Services Board had seen enough. They went ahead and terminated the grant funding. By November of that year, Southside had shut down and Madeline’s House was closed. 

Where STEPS came in 

This is where STEPS enters the picture. When Southside shut down, STEPS started fielding calls from multiple groups. The agency was asked to help find living spaces for the women and children who had been staying at Madeline’s House. They were asked by local governments, Commonwealth’s Attorneys and other operations to consider taking over, to fill the gap left by Southside’s closure. 

“We did not seek out this work,” Harrup points out. “This was a void in our community because of some of the other situations that this region found themselves in.”  

Shawn Rozier, Vice President of Housing with STEPS, said their group worked in the initial months to just provide some stopgap measures, connecting victims with other shelters in the state. 

“We would shelter them briefly in hotels until a solution could be found, a place for them to go,” Rozier said. “And while we were doing that, the community support started coming in.”

That support took many forms. Some of it involved offers to volunteer, while others were willing to provide services free of charge. There were financial gifts as well. One of the biggest came from the Sedgwick family, which helped STEPS purchase the shelter. Because it had been a shelter previously, things could move a lot quicker. The permits had already been obtained, the rooms had already been divided off. But they needed renovations and repairs. 

“We didn’t have to build rooms, (but) we had to do a lot of repairs,” Harrup said. “The entire building’s electrical system got reworked, and the entire heating and cooling system was replaced or repaired.” 

Plumbers, carpenters, electricians and others in the area volunteered their time, to get the ‘bones’ of the structure back up and running. STEPS also installed an “adopt a room” program. Civic clubs, churches, businesses or individuals could sign up and either furnish and decorate a room themselves or give STEPS the money necessary to do the job. As of this past week, every room in the facility has been adopted and finished. That includes eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, a living room, family room, kitchen, den area, a play area for teens and a library. 

The final piece falls into place 

So the building had been purchased, the rooms had been renovated. But the shelter still wasn’t open. That was because there wasn’t enough money on hand to hire a staff or cover the cost of operations. 

“We had applied for a Congressional directed spending package, thinking that would give us the funding we needed to get the doors open,” Harrup said. But things with the federal government take time and so that delayed the opening. 

Then one day this summer, Harrup got a call asking why Madeline’s House was still closed. It was from Dr. Mark French, the longtime Farmville veterinarian. French, along with his family agreed to give a joint $250,000 donation 

“Between the Sedgwicks and the French family, that’s over three quarters of a million dollars,” Harrup said. “We couldn’t thank them enough.”

That, combined with financial support from Amelia, Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, Lunenburg, Nottoway and Prince Edward counties, helped get them over the finish line.

With that, the group hired Ellis-Williams, who had been Director of Victims Services for the YWCA, a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter in Lynchburg. She in turn is in the process of hiring and training a number of staffers. 

Those federal dollars have also come through. This year’s federal budget includes more than $111 million for community projects throughout Virginia, of which Madeline’s House will receive $949,000. That money comes with a bit of a clock, as the group has four years to spend it. 

“It really does give us time to develop the program, to hire the staff that Linda needs and by the end of that three to four year period, we will be going back to local donors, building up a capital campaign on an annual basis and doing some of that donor development work,” Harrup said. 

When will Madeline’s House open?

So the big question is now with all the work done, when will Madeline’s House actually open? 

“It’s taken us just a little while to get all of our staff hired and trained and so we’re in the process of doing that right now,” Ellis-Williams said. “Hopefully we will be getting our doors open by the third week in September, but definitely in September.” 

And Ellis-Williams said this is just the first part of the program. The next step involves helping women and families after they leave Madeline’s House, as well as speaking with teens and college students, so they understand what positive relationships are. 

“Right now our goal is to provide intervention services, but within the next year, we’ll ramp up our prevention services,” Ellis-Williams said.