HarborCOV

CONTACT:

PO Box 505754
Chelsea, MA 02150
617-884-9799
www.harborcov.org

Laurie Holmes, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Did you know that about half of all homeless women with children nationwide are homeless because they are fleeing from domestic violence? HarborCOV, incorporated in 1998 as the successor to a program begun years earlier, has responded to the combined issues of women's homelessness and domestic violence by launching Massachusetts' first permanent-housing program to include support services for families escaping abuse. HarborCOV plans to create 50 new "transitional-to-permanent" housing units of which the first three, a three-family house named Casa Mirabel, opened in October 2002. In 2001, HarborCOV assisted more than 2,500 women and children through its hotline, shelter, advocacy, and community programs. It found shelter for nearly 300 women, and provided over 1,000 low-income survivors of domestic violence information about advocacy, legal aid, housing, and financial assistance. HarborCOV also works to promote non-violence as a cultural value and way-of-life, throughout the harbor communities of Chelsea, East Boston, Revere and Winthrop. All this is a mountain of work, which merits your major support.

(2002: HUMAN SERVICES: Girls and Women: Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse)