Ocala loses domestic violence and sexual assault resources

The Ocala Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Center is shown on South Pine Avenue in Ocala, Fla. on Monday, July 24, 2023. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2023.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on 7/28/2023 to include a statement from Florida Department of Children & Families.

After nearly five decades of providing services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, Creative Services, Inc., an Ocala-based not-for-profit, is closing its operations, a move the agency’s founder said is being driven by “personal vendettas.’’

The closure, effective Aug. 1, comes after a year of investigations by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, United Way of Marion County, and the Florida Department of Children and Families. Ultimately, suspended funding from both United Way and a string of private donors forced the closure, said Dr. Judy Wilson, who founded both services in 1975.

“As of August, the outreach staff will be laid off,” Wilson said, adding, “’We will pay the staff until all the women have been relocated.”

Wilson said 10 women have already been successfully relocated, and that she is working with DCF to relocate the 29 who remain, either locally or to their families in other parts of the country. “I’m not going to abandon the women at the shelter,” she said.

Wilson, 79, had been executive director of the Mental Health Association in Marion County in the 1970s and she created CSI because the association needed a new project to provide services that had been lacking in the community. While she said CSI has had its ups and downs over the decades, the past couple of years have been particularly challenging.

In late October 2022, Robert Haight, the CEO of United Way of Marion County, performed a site visit at the CSI shelters. This led United Way to suspend funding, based on safety and accounting concerns.

“I personally did not believe that the facilities as I saw them that day were appropriate,” Haight said. According to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office Incident Report from Nov. 1, 2022, Haight said he had stopped receiving CSI reports in June 2022, and that CSI said this was because of “staff turnover and COVID-19.”

In mid-February, a special investigations team from DCF performed its own site visit, and a month later threatened a “hostile takeover.” In March, an independent reviewer hired by the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence to perform an annual review of CSI’s sexual assault services recommended decertification of that program based on findings that the board was not following its own bylaws and annual operational reviews, specifically of a financial nature, were not taking place.

CSI had appealed FCASV’s subsequent decertification but revoked its appeal earlier this month, according to Jennifer Dritt, FCASV executive director.

“We never feel good about situations like this,” Dritt said. “It’s sad, and never a happy day for us.” Haven of Lake and Sumter counties is currently covering the sexual assault services in Marion County.

CSI Board President Mike Staley said CSI decided to relieve itself of the financial burdens the sexual assault center had become in an effort to save the domestic violence shelter. Both Staley and Wilson believe that people interested in starting their own domestic violence shelter were behind some of these investigations and suspended funding.

Additionally, Wilson said the shelter has always faced the threat of retaliation. “We have offended a couple of wealthy abusers by working with their wives and ex-wives in domestic violence situations,” Wilson noted, adding that it’s a common trend that abusers try to sabotage the efforts of those whom they abuse by threatening, ‘If you leave, I will destroy you and anyone who helps you.’ Wealth, power and social injustice kind of go together.”

Beth McCall, the executive director of the Marion County Children’s Alliance, refrained from commenting on CSI but said inadequate capacity for victims of domestic violence has been a longstanding issue in Marion County, especially in the past few years, with significant population growth. McCall was asked by Sheriff Billy Woods to chair a task force on domestic violence a few months ago.

“This is a community issue, and we need to be sure that victims of domestic violence have a safe haven,” McCall said. She added the task force itself is “still in the planning and research phase. We have made some progress.”

In a written statement to the “Gazette,” Mallory Manus, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Florida Department of Children and Family Services said, “In working with local entities such as the Sheriff’s office and State Attorney, the Department is working to ensure that there are no gaps in services. Creative Services has lost the trust of their community and despite multiple funding streams, has failed to carry out their duties.”