Safe Center LI's future in jeopardy, officials say, citing fiscal trouble

The Safe Center LI, for more than a decade the major provider of services to Nassau County’s survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse, faces dire financial difficulties and plans in coming weeks to transfer contracts for its core work to another organization, greatly shrinking its profile, the nonprofit’s leaders said.

Executive director Joshua Hanson said in an interview Wednesday that he hoped to transfer the agency’s contracts with Nassau County and New York State agencies by March 1 to Manhattan-based Safe Horizon. Should those transfers take place — the county and state must approve them — Safe Horizons will operate Nassau’s crisis hotline, domestic violence shelter, as well as Safe Center’s child advocacy center and rape crisis center.

"We’re pushing hard for it to happen as quickly as possible and our goal is to keep the services intact through the transitions," said Liz Roberts, CEO of Safe Horizon, the largest nonprofit victim services agency in the United States, according to its website.

Safe Center laid off around half its staff in January, Hanson said, with about 30 people still remaining. Around 30 people have been offered jobs at Safe Horizon, said Hanson and Roberts. 

Safe Center’s board has not decided whether to close but Hanson said that if the transfers go through, “there’s not a lot of the agency remaining, not a lot of staff remaining.” Legal Services of Long Island will take over an advocacy and legal services program. Safe Center has not found a partner for its housing, education and human trafficking program, said Shanell Parrish-Brown, a lawyer who chairs Safe Center’s board of directors.

On Thursday, after a version of this story was published online, Cindy Scott, Safe Center's former executive director, said that the organization had not paid its staff regularly since the summer. 

"It amazes me that they were willing to go in and keep doing their jobs, despite the fact that they hadn't been paid," said Scott, who retired in 2022 but said she had communicated with former colleagues. "They believed strongly in the work they did and the organization did and had such a strong commitment to the people they served. I think they were hopeful that things would get better and they could stay and continue the work they had been involved in, some of them for many, many years."

Scott said some former colleagues were still owed back pay. 

Hanson, in an email Thursday, did not specifically address assertions about pay.

"There are a lot of competing narratives about how we ended up in this situation and a lot of focus on blame, rather than how we ensure the transition to Safe Horizon happens immediately," he wrote. "Our staff have gone above and beyond to ensure services and support are available for our clients."

Parrish-Brown said Thursday that she did not have time for a follow-up interview but would consider answering emailed questions. She did not answer emailed questions as of Sunday evening. 

Tax filings through 2023 show Safe Center lost $1.2 million from 2021 to 2023, with net assets falling from $1.9 million to less than $700,000 over that time. Parrish-Brown said the nonprofit had operated at a loss four out of the last five years.

“We were in a situation where we’d exhausted a line of credit,” Hanson said. “We were not able to tolerate delays in funding and payroll. We ran aground (mid-2024) and started having more severe financial issues.”

Safe Center, like many nonprofits, relied heavily on government grants, which supplied about 87% of revenue in the 2023 filing. Hanson and Parrish-Brown said Safe Center’s financial troubles stemmed partly from a grant funding model that often requires an organization to deliver services, then submit vouchers for its work. “It’s difficult if you don’t have endowments and private funding to buffer that timing,” Parrish-Brown said.

An effort that began last year to win licensing for a behavioral clinic that would have generated revenue by letting Safe Center bill insurance companies for care is now winding down, having created losses but no revenues, she said.

Hanson wrote that the decision to open the clinic was made in consultation with Safe Center's board of directors. "It grew out of the need to overhaul the financial engine of the agency," he wrote. "We encountered significant delays in the process, resulting in not being able to bill for services provided" and abandonment of the effort, he wrote. 

Nonprofits cooperating closely

Parrish-Brown said the two organizations were cooperating closely on the handover.

“I am saddened by the fact that Safe Center was in a condition that we needed to go down this road, but so encouraged by the respect that Safe Horizon had for Safe Center and the way it was run,” she said. “Change is difficult, it’s said, but sometimes it creates a better project.”

Roberts, from Safe Horizon, said her organization planned to move into Safe Center's Bethpage headquarters. While Safe Horizon is Manhattan-based, it operates programs in Queens and has staff who live on Long Island, she said.

"We will work hard in the early months to get to know the key partners" on Long Island, she said. "We will show up with a lot of commitment and credibility and humility."

Safe Center was created by the 2014 merger of two nonprofits, the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Coalition Against Child Abuse & Neglect, which had served the county since 1977. Scott formerly led the Coalition Against Child Abuse. Sandy Oliva, who led the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, died in December. 

The speed with which its mission is now being pared rattled some leaders of other Long Island nonprofits, already on edge after the White House last month announced, then rescinded, a nationwide freeze on federal grant funding.

“We didn’t know it was going to happen,” said Jennifer Hernandez, co-founder and executive director of ECLI-VIBES, an Islandia nonprofit that serves survivors of domestic violence, assault, human trafficking and abuse. She feared that the handover could result in more Nassau clients being referred to a network of Suffolk nonprofits she said was already stressed.

“We have only a limited amount of advocates, attorneys and limited housing resources,” Hernandez said. “Those are not at full capacity, but they’re close.” Last year, she said, her organization served 34 clients from Nassau; by the end of January they had already served nine, she said.