[0:22] Well, good morning. I'm Congressman Greg Cassar. I'm proud to represent Austin and Travis County

[0:30] in the United States Congress. And today, I would like to deeply thank our friends at

[0:38] SAFE alongside Travis County leaders for bringing this vision to life. We were just talking

[0:46] about how back when I was on the city council, we were talking about how we could keep

[0:51] survivors safe on this piece of property and add housing onto this property, we've been

[0:56] talking about that for seven or eight years.

[1:01] And today my office is proud to deliver a million dollars in federal funding to make

[1:07] sure that families in Austin are safe from domestic violence, sexual assault, and homelessness.

[1:14] The Sasha, which this million dollars will help complete, is 60 new homes on

[1:22] safe campus serving nearly 250 survivors at a time. For those families, these

[1:31] homes are not a statistic. They're a safe place for an Austin kid to do their

[1:36] homework and just be a normal child. A safe place for survivors to heal and

[1:43] to rebuild, a safe place for families to be together, sometimes three generations under

[1:49] one roof.

[1:51] The Sasha comes with counseling and legal help and support services for our kids.

[1:57] Too many women and children in America feel like they have to choose between being safe

[2:04] at home or having a roof over their head.

[2:08] And here in Travis County, we're helping make sure that women and kids don't have

[2:13] to make that choice.

[2:15] That no one should have to choose to try to go sleep under a bridge in order to be safe

[2:21] from violence and abuse back at home.

[2:24] Because safety is not a luxury.

[2:27] Every single family deserves it.

[2:30] Housing like this ripples throughout an entire community.

[2:34] It reduces homelessness.

[2:36] It keeps people housed instead of having people cycle in and out of homelessness

[2:41] or in and out of the emergency room.

[2:44] And most importantly, it makes us all safer.

[2:47] We've seen from permanent supportive housing

[2:50] and supportive housing projects like this

[2:53] that we have seen a rest drop in some cases more than 70%

[2:58] once we make sure that people have a safe place to live,

[3:03] a safe place to go.

[3:05] Of course, we work constantly to improve our 911 response

[3:10] in this community. But we also want to make sure that fewer people have to call

[3:17] 911 in the first place because they have a safe place to live and a safe place to

[3:23] go. The Sasha of course is just one more piece of the incredible work that Safe

[3:29] does in this community and it won't be the last thing that we invest in and it

[3:35] won't be the only piece of work that we fund at the federal county city level.

[3:42] We do enormous good in this community together.

[3:45] Some of us were just talking about how it was just a few years ago that we worked with

[3:49] SAFE to clear the scandalous rape kit backlog in this community.

[3:55] Or how at the city and local level, we realized there was this huge waiting list for shelter

[4:01] shelter, and we purchased an old empty hotel and made sure that we have expanded shelter

[4:08] capacity in this community.

[4:10] And now we know that we have a huge shortage of permanent supportive housing, including

[4:16] for families and survivors of abuse and the Sasha is going to help us tackle that challenge.

[4:22] So even though in Washington, D.C., there's gridlock and there are so many problems in

[4:28] Washington, D.C.

[4:30] I'm committed.

[4:31] We're committed to making sure that when Austinites pay their federal taxes that some of that money comes home to do something good

[4:38] At a time where we're spending billions of dollars on wars of choice that don't seem to make anyone safer

[4:46] This is an example of how if we bring some of that money home if

[4:51] Instead of spending our money on war or in bombs or tax breaks to the ultra wealthy

[4:56] policy, we can actually spend our taxpayer money making our lives better, making our

[5:03] community safer, reducing homelessness, reducing violence.

[5:07] And that's exactly what we're doing with this million dollars.

[5:11] But we don't do that alone at the federal level.

[5:14] We need partners here at the local level who will make sure your dollars are spent

[5:19] responsibly, who know what the highest impact projects are.

[5:23] And the first person I call in all of Travis County with that question is your county judge,

[5:30] our leader here in Travis County, Andy Brown, and we would not be able to have done this

[5:35] without him and his leadership.

[5:37] So I'm proud to call up Judge Brown.

[5:38] Thank you, man.

[5:39] Great to see you.

[5:41] I want to say thank you to SAFE, thank you to Congressman Kassar, to our community

[5:45] partners and everyone who helped make the Sasha a reality.

[5:49] Today is really about celebrating what's possible when we all come together with

[5:52] a shared commitment to protecting our neighbors and building a stronger community.

[5:57] For so many decades, SAFE has been a lifeline for survivors of domestic violence, sexual

[6:02] assault, child abuse, and human trafficking.

[6:05] And Travis County is proud to help build upon this legacy with investments this year

[6:10] so far of $1.5 million with federal ARPA money to help the ship investment, as well

[6:16] as the ship investment of $7.2 million again, ARPA Money, dedicated towards safe Lancaster

[6:22] development. The work of SAFE has transformed lives across central Texas, and today we're

[6:28] building on that legacy. We know that violence and homelessness are deeply connected. For

[6:34] too many survivors, leaving an abusive situation can also mean losing the safety

[6:39] and stability of a home. And nobody should have to choose between escaping violence

[6:43] and having a place to sleep.

[6:45] That's why the Sasha is so important.

[6:48] This isn't just another housing development.

[6:50] It's a place where survivors can begin to heal,

[6:52] rebuild, and create a brighter future for themselves and their families.

[6:56] When it's fully occupied, we're going to have nearly 250 survivors,

[7:00] including children, parents, and even grandparents,

[7:02] who will have access to safe, stable housing

[7:04] and the support they need to move forward.

[7:08] Projects like this are a great investment in our community.

[7:11] When we provide stable housing and wraparound services, we improve health outcomes, we reduce

[7:16] the strain on emergency systems, and we reduce the strain on our county jail, which has been

[7:22] going up in population since the pandemic.

[7:25] And it's through supportive housing like this unit and others, that's the only way

[7:29] that we're going to ever reduce that number in our jail.

[7:32] So I just want to thank Congressman Greg Gissar and the federal government for

[7:35] all of your help and leadership on this. And I will turn it over to our buddy,

[7:41] Commissioner George Morales. Thank you, George. Thank you, Congressman.

[7:46] So I want to start off by saying thank you to Congressman Cassar and our

[7:51] county judge, any brown.

[7:53] For your safe alliance has been a beacon of hope, providing a life

[7:56] changing violence prevention services to children, family and individuals

[8:01] throughout our community. Because of its unwavering commitment, countless

[8:05] survivors have found a place where fear is replaced with safety, despair, with hope,

[8:13] and healing. As the needs of the community continue to grow, Safe Alliance remains a

[8:18] leader in both vision, compassion, continually assessing emerging needs, and boldly expanding

[8:25] its programs to ensure that every person seeking assistance has the opportunity to rebuild

[8:32] their life with dignity and support. My wife is an employee of SAFE. She has 16

[8:42] years of service here, 14 as a parent team specialist at the old building, two

[8:49] and a half years here as the basic needs coordinator in this warehouse.

[8:55] SAFE Alliance holds a very special place in my heart. Throughout its

[9:01] remarkable growth in Austin. I had a privilege of witnessing its impact

[9:03] firsthand during my year serving as both the police officer and constable.

[9:10] Time and again, I saw the extraordinary compassion of its staff,

[9:15] its volunteers and the critical services it provides. I saw a lot done

[9:24] in our community with safe.

[9:26] You are continually a beacon of hope, especially in our precinct for

[9:30] community that I wholeheartedly represent.

[9:33] Congratulations to the Safe Alliance Board of Directors, dedicate staff and

[9:38] incredible volunteers. Your vision, compassion and steadfast commitment

[9:43] continue to meet our community's greatest needs with courage and grace.

[9:47] The Sasha is more than a building. It is a symbol of hope, resilience, new

[9:54] beginnings. And because of your leadership, generations to come will

[9:58] have a safe place to heal, to be nurtured and to thrive.

[10:02] Thank you so much.

[10:03] I'd like to introduce Pierre.

[10:09] Good morning, everyone.

[10:10] I'm Dr. Pierre Baraste, and I'm the CEO of the Safe Alliance.

[10:13] And Congressman Cassar, thank you for being here and helping us secure this one million

[10:17] dollar investment in survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their children.

[10:21] For more than 50 years, the Safe Alliance has walked alongside survivors of domestic sexual

[10:26] violence, sex trafficking, and their children, and we've learned something quite simple

[10:30] and profound.

[10:30] And that is that safety requires a place to live.

[10:35] We often hear survivors asked, why didn't you leave?

[10:39] Why were you in the relationship for so long?

[10:41] But that question assumes that there was somewhere safe for them to go.

[10:46] And violence is accompanied by financial abuse, by isolation, by damaged credit, disrupted

[10:51] employment, isolation from family and friends and community, and leaving an abusive relationship

[10:57] It may mean abandoning everything familiar to that individual and that family.

[11:02] It may mean choosing between a dangerous home or no home at all.

[11:07] And domestic violence and homelessness are not separate crises.

[11:11] For many survivors, in fact, they are part of the same crisis.

[11:15] You see, every 20 minutes, someone in our community reaches out to our crisis line.

[11:18] Every 20 minutes.

[11:19] And the most common request is housing.

[11:23] Over half of those waiting for emergency shelter in our waitlist are children.

[11:30] Over half of those in our housing are children.

[11:35] Now I am heartened to know that our nation is beginning to recognize the scale of this

[11:39] housing challenge, right?

[11:40] Congress came together just this July and worked together across political lines, right?

[11:45] to pass the 21st century road to access to housing act and that I think is a

[11:51] powerful reminder that even in a divided time as you mentioned even in gridlock

[11:57] we can still choose to build something together for our communities. Housing is

[12:02] where stability begins and access to housing must include safe housing for

[12:07] survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their children. For someone

[12:11] escaping violence, housing creates that distance from the harm they've experienced, it creates

[12:17] the time to heal, the stability for their children and their lives to begin again.

[12:23] The SACHA and the Safe Alliance embody that vision.

[12:28] The SACHA will provide, as mentioned, permanent and transitional support of housing for survivors

[12:32] and families alongside secure spaces, counseling, legal support, peer support, children services.

[12:38] This $1 million investment will help strengthen those supports across safe

[12:44] campus. I also want to thank the City of Austin and the Texas Department of

[12:48] Housing and Community Affairs for their significant investment in this

[12:52] project and of course Julia Stan and Gretchen Ellis, one of our board

[12:56] members, Dr. Gretchen Ellis, whose vision has made this possible. We are

[13:02] grateful as well to DMA Development, Fortcraft Architecture, Bailey Elliott

[13:06] construction and most importantly to the survivors whose wisdom helped shaped what is being built here.

[13:13] This is government and community working as they should. Federal leadership building upon

[13:19] city and state investment, county partnership, non-profit expertise and survivor wisdom

[13:25] coming together around a shared purpose. Congressman Cassar, thank you for believing

[13:31] that public service can help create not only housing but freedom. I think together we are

[13:36] saying that no survivor should have to choose between violence and homelessness,

[13:40] that every child deserves to know a home as a place for safety, and that here in

[13:46] Austin and Travis County, beginning again is possible. Thank you. Hello,

[13:59] I'm Makani

[14:00] Kalk and I stand here today as a survivor of domestic violence, sexual

[14:06] assault, human trafficking, and homelessness. For a long time, survival meant making it through

[14:12] one more night, one more threat, one more day without knowing what would happen next. It meant

[14:18] carrying fear in my body while still trying to parent, find food, diapers, and a way forward.

[14:26] I was fighting to survive while trying to protect my child and often felt like the world

[14:33] did not see how much danger I was really in.

[14:37] I didn't believe that a different life was even possible,

[14:40] but when I finally got to safe, I had already been trying to escape violence for over a decade.

[14:47] At the time, I was living in a tent with my two-year-old child.

[14:52] We had been on the shelter waitlist for more than six months.

[14:56] We depended on the kindness of strangers for diapers and food.

[15:00] Recreation centers for safe daily showers.

[15:05] Shelter space opened only when the threats became lethal.

[15:10] Even then, shelter was only a 30-day stay.

[15:14] If there was no housing on the other side of those 30 days, it meant going back to the streets.

[15:20] Or, if you were lucky, moving from shelter to shelter.

[15:25] For a survivor fleeing violence, 30 days disappears quickly.

[15:30] Many of us leave the abuse with nothing. No income, no steady work history,

[15:36] interrupted education, injuries that were never treated,

[15:41] trauma that has been living in our bodies for years.

[15:44] By the time survivors make it to shelter, their support systems have already been broken down.

[15:51] Isolation is part of the abuse.

[15:53] Friends, family, churches, and community may be separated from us, unaware, misled, or

[16:01] aligned with the person who harmed us.

[16:07] Survivors of domestic violence are not simply experiencing homelessness.

[16:10] We are trying to escape danger while healing, parenting, looking for work, finding childcare,

[16:18] fighting for custody, and cooperating with prosecution.

[16:22] And all of that happens while the person who harmed us is still stalking, following, threatening, or harassing us every time we try to move forward.

[16:31] I know that my first attempts at working were messy. I had long gaps in employment, unreliable childcare, and trauma responses I could not control.

[16:39] I flinched from the phone ring. I jumped at loud noises. I froze when someone asked me a question. I was not lazy. I was not unwilling. I was injured.

[16:50] Trauma had changed the way my brain and body responded to the world, and I needed to heal before I could fully function in the way that the world required me to.

[16:59] I needed two things most of all, time and safety.

[17:03] I needed time for my body and brain to understand that I was no longer in constant danger.

[17:08] I needed time to learn how to breathe again, how to sleep, how to trust, how to parent without fear controlling every decision.

[17:16] And I needed safety. Not just a bed for a few nights, but a stable secure place where I could begin to rebuild.

[17:25] I needed people around me who also understood what I had been through.

[17:30] I needed people who could see the strength it took just to keep going.

[17:34] Safety gave me room to breathe, it gave me room to rest, and it gave me room to remember who I am.

[17:41] I received a few years of supportive housing from SAFE and for the past five years, I have

[17:46] been serving as a peer support specialist.

[17:48] Now I get to sit with survivors in moments when they may feel terrified, ashamed, overwhelmed

[17:53] or alone, and I get to be the living proof that healing is possible.

[17:59] I get to offer the kind of presence I once needed so badly, and I also get to stand

[18:04] here today and say deeply and profoundly, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank

[18:10] Thank you to everyone who has invested time, money, labor, and care into the development

[18:17] of the Sasha.

[18:18] This work is not just a project, it is a lifeline, it is going to change lives for people like

[18:23] me and the funding you have fought so hard for will create safety that survivors and

[18:30] families will benefit from for generations.

[18:33] Because when a survivor is given safety and time to heal, she's able to raise children

[18:37] who thrive.

[18:39] She's able to build stability, community, and hope.

[18:43] She's able to become more than what happened to her.

[18:47] And that is how we begin to break the chains of violence.

[18:49] That is how we continue to stop abuse for everyone.

[18:52] So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[18:54] Thank

[18:59] you for sharing your story.

[19:04] And I think your story answers so many questions that folks watching at home, I think have

[19:11] and ask all the time. When people ask why is it that there's 911 call after 911

[19:18] call after 911 call to the same address over and over again. It's because women

[19:24] and kids facing abuse in our community have way too few places to go and so

[19:30] there's 911 call after 911 call for months or even years. This funding

[19:36] helps us fix that. When people ask their elected officials in Austin

[19:41] and all the time.

[19:42] How is it that we have women and sometimes women and kids sleeping in tents?

[19:48] The answer is in your story that there are way too few safe places for people to go and

[19:55] that a mom is going to choose a tent to keep their kids safe if they're worried that they

[19:59] could be killed back at home.

[20:01] This funding helps make sure that we can get families out of tents and into safe

[20:07] housing and then the chance to heal to be able to go to work because people want

[20:11] to be able to work but sometimes they just need a safe place to get their life

[20:16] in order so that they can build a new life. And so that's exactly what this does.

[20:21] I also want to thank members of the board and our friends Janine at DMA and

[20:27] our local friends at Bailey Elliott for their really important work here. This

[20:32] This is something to celebrate, this is something good getting done.

[20:36] As Pierre mentioned, I advocated and got this into a budget passed in a Congress with a

[20:43] Republican Speaker because there were many items that I requested, and other members

[20:48] of Congress requested that were questioned, but this one was not questioned.

[20:54] This is something we all agree we need in Austin.

[20:58] in housing that keeps people safe, gets people off the streets, and does the right thing

[21:05] that I think people at home wish their federal tax dollars were going to much more often.

[21:10] And so with that, I think we're going to hand you guys this big check.

[21:34] I

[21:46] did forget to ask y'all if we covered everything yeah you

[22:09] guys should come and get in the picture

[22:16] I'm proud that they have more captioning.

[22:44] If you can see the camera, they can see you.

[22:46] Okay, y'all, thank you guys very much.

[22:48] Sorry, was there anything we didn't answer?

[22:49] We cover everything.

[22:51] You guys can pull us aside one on one, too, if you need.

[22:54] Thank you guys so much.

[22:57] Yeah man.

[23:00] It's, oh, correction Alice.

[23:03] Great.

[23:06] We're saying, Austin Sanders.

[23:08] Did you hit the meet-chain first?

[23:09] Yeah, right, exactly.

[23:11] I just wanted to ask a couple of follow-ups.

Press Conference - SAFE Alliance

Transcript