Turning Point Domestic Violence Services will announce Thursday at a brief annual report at The Commons that it will begin considering a new facility to replace its shelter that has housed clients since the early 1980s.
The news will be part of the nonprofit agency’s annual report to the community at 5:30 p.m. before its fundraiser event The Not-So-Newlywed Game. The game features local married couples highlighting healthy relationships amid National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Tickets are still available for that at turningpointdv.org/events.
“We’re just announcing the concept (of a new facility) that the board is exploring,” said Lisa Shafran, Turning Point’s president.
She said a Turning Point committee hopes to have a new facility, bigger than the current one, by perhaps three years from now. The agency never publicly discusses the location of its emergency shelter, though many residents are familiar with it.
“We have to raise money, find the appropriate property, and design the building, and all of that,” Shafran said. “This right now is so early. This is just something we’re exploring.”
In 2017, the organization provided 6,582 nights of housing in the organization’s emergency shelter and answered 1,280 crisis calls. Agency’s leaders are expected to highlight 2018 figures on Thursday.
The agency’s mission since its formation in 1975 is to work toward the prevention and the elimination of domestic and dating violence. It does so in Bartholomew, Brown, Decatur, Jackson, Johnson, and Shelby counties.
Prevention programming has grown substantially since 2005 in the five service counties and now is designed to stop domestic violence in the next generation as well as reduce risks of its occurrence in those who already have risk factors, according to its history listed on its website at turningpointdv.org.
Turning Point also provides a toll-free, 24-hour crisis help line.
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What: Turning Point Domestic Violence Service’s fifth annual Not-So-Newlywed Game, involving a twist on television’s The Newlywed Game
When: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, including Turning Point’s annual community report before the game.
Where: The Commons, 300 Washington St. in downtown Columbus.
Tickets: Available at turningpointdv.org/events
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