January 24, 2002
Liz Murray
Writer, The Nashville Scene
A Place to Run From Home
A new center for domestic violence victims, the first of its kind in Nashville, opens next month.
Ill-equipped and fragmented as the city's law enforcement and judicial infrastructure is now for the city's most vulnerable citizens, the Feb. 14 opening of the Mary Parrish Center for Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence is cause for optimism.
A woman--or man, for that matter--who finally musters the courage to seek protection from their abuser is always in for a rude awakening when she or he encounters the city's Byzantine bureaucracy. But the new center's opening is expected to mitigate such procedural red tape for Nashville victims, many of whom face life or death situations.
"A one-stop victim service center--that's what this will be," says Valerie Wynn, the center's executive director who has spent the last two years securing funding for the project. The center is named after the mother of Wynn's husband, former Metro Police Lt. Mark Wynn, a domestic violence survivor.
Right now, a domestic violence victim seeking refuge must navigate a complicated and inconvenient maze of judicial and law enforcement red tape, the likes of which are exhausting just to think about.
Victims lucky enough to have transportation and a little money in their pockets can make their way to "Night Court" in downtown's Criminal Justice Center to seek an order of protection. The paperwork contains a list of complicated questions requiring enormous detail, including the address, complete with zip code, where the abuser resides. If the victim is lucky, the Night Court commissioner will grant the temporary order. (Although once the order of protection is served on the abuser, the chances of the victim being murdered skyrocket.) Even then, the victim will have to come back downtown two weeks later to testify in court for the permanent order.
Those with children by their abusers will be told to go across the street to Circuit Court, where such orders are handled, while people with children by someone else stay in Night Court. To make things even more complicated, if a woman wants to start a paternity action against her abuser, she'll have to get in the car and go to Juvenile Court. If she wants a warrant against her abuser, she'll then have to travel to the Metro Police Department's Domestic Violence Division to fill out more paperwork, then come back to Night Court with an officer to process that warrant.
Often, there is no money for day care, and children--hungry and cranky--must tag along for what is already an emotionally difficult and logistically tedious process.
The center, on the fifth floor of 131 2nd Ave. N., will start modestly, initially housing four core services, then adding more later. Wynn hopes that the center's first clients can complete the basics, all in the center's office: file a police report, get legal aid and family and children-related services, and help in seeking orders of protection.
Getting this far, she says, was no easy task. "Getting money to do a start-up is kind of like your first job," Wynn says. "Nobody wants to take a chance on you until you have more experience, and you can't get any experience unless someone gives you the chance."
Major funding came from the Nashville section of the National Council of Jewish Women, the Community Foundation and the Memorial Foundation.
"This is uncharted territory," Wynn says. "We're really opening on a wing and a prayer."
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