By: Jeanita Lyman
The Contra Costa County Family Justice Center could be making the San Ramon Valley a home base for expanded operations in the southern portion of the county this year, with officials from the organization along with Danville, San Ramon, and the county currently ironing out the details of where and how a new outpost might operate locally.
District 2 Supervisor Candace Andersen told Danville San Ramon that she has been involved with the Family Justice Center since the first term of her tenure in the county seat roughly a decade ago, participating in early formation meetings for the organization’s Central Center in Concord as part of its expansion to three different locations in Contra Costa along with a Solano County center in the decades since its inception in 2001.
“Over the years I’ve been a big supporter of them, and I said at some point we need one in South County,” Andersen said.
Andersen asked her staff to begin exploring options for a south county center at the start of the year, with support from local officials in San Ramon and Danville immediately pouring in as a response. Following meetings with both city managers, Andersen led discussions at the San Ramon City Council and Danville Town Council aimed at providing public information and soliciting feedback on the possibility of expanding operations to the San Ramon Valley.
At an informational presentation at the San Ramon City Council on March 12, Andersen and city officials discussed the possibility of at least temporarily housing Family Justice Center operations on the site of the city’s new South County Training Facility for the fire department and new police headquarters at 2401 Bollinger Canyon Road.
“We sat down with your City Manager, with Chief Carlson, and we said ‘what would it look like?’ and they immediately had this brilliant idea of ‘hey we think’ – because we’re not going to start in a grand, huge way – ‘there may be some space available in the police department to really start this growing,’” Andersen told the City Council.
Like the other Family Justice Center locations in the county, the new facility would be staffed by members of the organization as well as being a base of operations for a navigator position that Andersen has already obtained funding for.
“I am finally as supervisor getting a navigator, a navigator being someone who will help people access the resources they need,” Andersen said. “This would be the first time we would actually have such a resource in our end of the county where someone could come in and say ‘I need to sign up for CalFresh; I need to find out how to sign up for Medi-Cal, I am suddenly without means.”
Andersen pointed to an experiment organizers had conducted amidst meetings ahead of the opening of the Family Justice Center location in Concord to explore the need for services offered by the organization and the challenges faced by its clients.
“Imagine you’ve suddenly been locked out of your house because of a domestic fight with a partner,” Andersen said. “How long would it take you to get the things you need to be safe?”
The answer, according to the experiences of two volunteers who set out to obtain the services someone facing domestic violence might need on public transportation throughout the county, was two days.
The findings, as well as the growing number of clients served by the organization’s existing centers in the county, point toward the need and value of the Family Justice Center model according to Andersen.
“I see this as a really unique time where we really could utilize such a center in our community, and again, starting small but bringing in all the community representatives,” Andersen said.
In addition to the growing number of clients served by the organization county-wide, Andersen pointed to the growing and changing population of the San Ramon Valley as presenting new needs and challenges, with an increasing number of first and second generation immigrant households in the region who might face additional barriers and cultural stigma around obtaining help in domestic violence situations.
“There’s a unique need that is not being served by any other Family Justice Center on the level that I think it should be in our community,” Andersen said.
With domestic violence being an issue across cultures, ethnicities, and income levels, Andersen noted that debunking myths surrounding the populations it impacts would be a critical part of expanding the Family Justice Center to the San Ramon Valley.
“It’s something unique that we have had to date in this end of the county,” Andersen said. “It’s somewhat a perception that hey, South County and Lamorinda, they don’t have any problems, everyone’s wealthy, everyone’s fine, but the reality is during the pandemic we saw our CalFresh applications increase by 80% in District 2,” Andersen said.
“There are families in need and our school district will attest to that. And certainly what we have seen in our Family Justice Center in Central County is that there are people coming up there – as your police chief, as Danville’s police chief will attest, we do have a lot of domestic violence taking place and people not knowing where to go or being embarrassed or feeling like they’re all alone,” she continued.
While no vote was scheduled that evening, council members voiced their support for the project following Andersen’s presentation alongside Family Justice Center’s Central Center Director Natalie Oleas.
“I can tell you as my mother and myself being a survivor of domestic violence, everything you’ve touched on I can personally relate to,” District 4 Councilmember Marisol Rubio said.
City Manager Steven Spedowfski noted that there would need to be additional details ironed out, including logistics and budgeting, for the proposed operation in the city’s new public safety hub alongside the new police department headquarters, with staff set to bring the item back to the council either as an individual report or part of the city’s budget process.
Andersen went on to lead a discussion on the matter at the Danville Town Council during a study session on March 19, but noted at the San Ramon council meeting that the town did not have the same amount of space available to offer as an alternative site for all Family Justice Center operations.
The tentative plan as of Tuesday, Andersen told Danville San Ramon, was to make use of the SRPD site being offered by the city as a modest, initial location for a south county center, with Danville officials offering space for meetings, seminars, and other off-site activities for the organization.
“They’re very supportive of being partners, and they want to make available many of their meeting rooms,” Andersen said.
In addition to next steps still pending at the San Ramon and Danville councils, Andersen noted that the budget process for the Board of Supervisors was also a factor, saying she would be seeking $1.5 million in Measure X funds in the coming months in order to cover operations and offset costs to the City of San Ramon for use of the proposed space.
Discussions are set to continue in a special meeting on April 16 with Andersen and officials from Danville and San Ramon as well as the Family Justice Center. If all goes according to plan, Andersen said she was hoping the new center could be unveiled as early as this fall.
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