Safe Exit

Drop-In-Counseling Center

La Casa de las Madres’ Drop In Center embodies our commitment to providing a comprehensive continuum of care for victims and survivors of domestic violence.  At our Drop In Center, we support women and families—emotionally and practically—as they heal from the trauma of domestic violence and overcome its impact on their lives.  In a public location, it acts as central hub to insure that women, teens, and families across San Francisco can easily access safe, effective, and responsive issue-specific support services.  At the Drop In Center, survivors can connect with any of our services to address immediate and ongoing needs.

Our Drop In Center offers expansive need-based intervention and support to domestic violence victims and survivors of all ages.  Our free, confidential services include:

  • Assistance with housing stability

  • Economic empowerment

  • Safe visitation advocacy

  • Restraining order assistance

  • Advocacy and referrals

  • Crisis response and intervention

  • Safety planning and risk assessment

  • Counseling

  • Support groups

  • Intakes to Emergency Shelter

La Casa Drop in Center

1269 Howard Street

San Francisco, CA 94103

Phone: 415-503-0500

 

Emergency Shelter

Our confidentially-located Emergency Shelter Program serves as a safe haven for women and children fleeing domestic violence.  Without such a safe haven, victims are too often faced with an impossible choice: to continue living in a violent or life-threatening environment, or to become homeless.  Much more than just shelter, we offer safety, comprehensive advocacy, and support services to up to 35 women and children each night.

During an up to eight week stay, La Casa’s shelter is a safe place to land, take stock of one’s resources, and lay out a plan for next steps.  Our ‘round the clock staff insure individualized support for each woman and her children, while onsite services help residents heal from abuse and reverse the isolation caused by domestic violence.  The shelter offers individual counseling, support groups, practical living skills development, resource advocacy, and support service referrals.  La Casa also encourages women and their children to engage together to relieve trauma, strengthen bonds, and break the intergenerational cycle of violence.

The only domestic violence shelter in San Francisco offering ‘round-the-clock access to safety, we conduct shelter intakes 24 hours a day, every day.

“I want to acknowledge my eternal gratitude for having a number to call, a refuge to go to, and the heart and spirit that fuel the good work being done here.  It’s such a gift to not feel alone when you feel in danger and unable to cope….  The support, kindness, warmth, and direction meant so much to me.  Muchas gracias a las hermanas de La Casa de las Madres.  You Rock!”
–Shelter resident

ARISE | Zuckerberg SF General Hospital

At Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital a La Casa advocate provides on-site safety planning and support to patients through warm handoffs from physicians and nurses at the hospital. For those victims that seek medical services due to abuse, we believe connecting with these individuals immediately, on site, will lower the chance of lethality and physical harm.

High Risk Team

The High Risk team is a partnership between La Casa, the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, the SFPD, SF District Attorney, and other community-based organizations

Through this program, a La Casa advocate works with emergency first-responders to support individuals that have been identified as at high-risk of a lethal domestic violence situation, following a police response to a family violence 9-1-1 call. The SFPD’s Bayview Station connects all at-risk survivors with our advocate, who can provide support services over the phone as well as locally, and act as a conduit through which the individual can access additional La Casa programming such as our shelter, support groups, and therapy.

Teen Program

Teens have unique needs.  Our experience has shown—and studies report—that not so uniquely, many teens experience domestic and dating violence and unhealthy relationships, which can cause serious problems in their lives.  The dangers of abuse and risks to health and safety that teens face are no different than those of adults.

La Casa’s Teen Program provides issue-specific intervention and prevention services tailored to the unique dynamics of teen lives and teen dating and domestic violence. Through our Drop In Center and at community partner locations, we support teens who have experienced violence in their relationships and in their homes.  We also provide resources to teens who are at risk of abuse.

Immediate help is available to teens 24 hours a day, 365 days a year through our confidential and toll-free Teen Crisis Line:

San Francisco Police Department | SVU

Our Domestic Violence Response Team (DVRT) is part of a multidisciplinary collaboration working to minimize the trauma that San Francisco’s victims of domestic violence experience as a result of abuse.  La Casa’s DVRT staff work closely with the San Francisco Police Department’s Special Victims Unit, the section of police inspectors, previously known as the Domestic Violence Response Unit, assigned to investigate reports of domestic violence.  La Casa offers voluntary services to victims of domestic violence alongside the Unit at 850 Bryant—San Francisco’s Hall of Justice—and is available to assist inspectors and victims as they navigate the law enforcement system.

La Casa also reaches out to all reported victims in San Francisco to immediately provide them with crisis support services, and connects survivors with La Casa’s Drop In Center and community partners for needed interventions.  Finally, La Casa’s DVRT supports first responders citywide, around the clock, in their work with victims.  Through our 24-hour crisis lines, La Casa assists medical and law enforcement personnel in identifying victims’ needs, encouraging their safety, and facilitating access to support services.

This unique partnership enables us to connect with survivors who are often otherwise unaware of the life-saving services available to them, and who accept services through La Casa over 70% of the time.  Also through this partnership, we offer training, education, and resources to law enforcement, medical providers, and other professionals regarding the community resources available to survivors, the dynamics of domestic violence, and the compassionate identification of and response to domestic violence.

Safe Housing

Through our Safe Housing Project, La Casa works directly with those who live in local subsidized housing. We provide support, safety planning, information about legal protections and other services that can help survivors sustain permanent housing and prioritize safety. La Casa also hosts trainings for service staff and property management about the dynamics and effects of domestic violence, provides interventions and consultations, and advocates for systemic and site improvements.  It’s essential that survivors can safely ask for help and exercise their rights and that staffed sites are equipped, for instance, with effective protocols for communicating a Restraining Order between front desk shifts.

Permanent Supportive Housing

La Casa partners with the Mary Elizabeth Inn to ensure that residents of San Francisco’s two women-only subsidized housing sites, where formerly homeless women can live permanently, have access to emotional and practical support services.  On-site case management encourages each woman to build upon the momentum of her newly stable housing to address underlying vulnerabilities related to experiences of trauma, domestic violence, sexual assault, substance abuse, and job readiness.  Staff provide advocacy, counseling, and referrals to empower residents to sustain their independent housing, build skills and community, and continue to move through the healing process toward permanently violence-free lives.  With La Casa’s support, many residents make strides into independence and self-sufficiency.