About the Author: The National Network of Gender-Based Violence Shelters (La Red) in Puerto Rico is a key organization in the fight against gender-based violence. Founded on March 24, 2010, and restructured in 2021, La Red’s mission is to represent and strengthen emergency and transitional shelter organizations. Its work focuses on advocacy, training, and mutual support, ensuring the delivery and continuity of specialized services through shared financial and human resources. La Red’s vision is to transform the social, political, and economic conditions that affect survivors of gender-based violence through education, development, and public policy advocacy, guaranteeing their dignity, safety, and overall well-being.
The work of the Red Nacional de Albergues de Violencia de Género is key to advancing gender equity on the island, as it brings together a sector that has historically been invisible in Puerto Rico. Despite the critical role they play, shelters are not recognized by the State as providers of essential services. Shelters, however, are the only service that can safeguard the lives of survivors and prevent potential intimate feminicides.
This vital work is extremely demanding and underfunded, with little recognition of its social value or the resources needed to carry it out sustainably.
For this reason, some of the priorities of our network are:
- To advocate for the necessary resources so that these services remain stable and
- To strengthen alliances with the private and public sectors so that the shelters can continue to do their work.
It is important to recognize that shelters provide essential services, and these institutions have continuously expanded their services to meet the evolving needs of survivors and the children in their care. At their core, shelters are safe, secure, and confidential places for women who have escaped domestic violence. Once there, survivors receive a range of services, including psychological, therapeutic, legal, psychosocial, and nursing care. In addition, they are provided resources for economic empowerment and coordination of medical needs.
Shelters address all aspects of a survivor’s needs, coordinating everything necessary for their healing. Furthermore, these centers also offer educational services for children, including, in some cases, specialized trauma-sensitive programs.
When we think of essential services, we often think of police and hospitals. However, shelters should be seen as an emergency room for survivors. Shelters operate around the clock, never closing for holidays or national emergencies because they understand that if their doors are not open, the risk of feminicides increases.
These centers are crucial because they serve as first responders and provide services 365 days a year, so that survivors may be able to flee, no matter the day or month.
That is why, for the past three years, we’ve been advocating for shelters to be recognized as essential services and first responders.
Currently, shelters, like many other non-profit organizations, face significant financial uncertainty due to changes in the political landscape. One of these impacts has been the cancellation or reduction of federal funding, which constitutes 75% to 90% of the financial support shelters receive, either directly or distributed through local government.
Some of the main offices that support work on gender-based violence, such as the Office of Violence Against Women and the Office of Victims of Crime, have closed their calls for proposals, halted grant evaluation processes, or cancelled funds that had already been awarded. Through our network, we are doing everything humanly possible to continue guaranteeing the delivery of services. However, no organization can endure years with such funding cuts and still meet the vast needs of the country. This is precisely why a local response is needed. The situation we are facing is neither simple nor easy.
Shelters have been preparing for different scenarios and assessing how they can continue operating with reduced resources. We have also been advocating and urging local agencies to acknowledge the potential impact of federal funding cuts, requesting that they develop a local plan to respond to the uncertainty surrounding federal funding.
Although shelters provide essential services for survivors of domestic violence, they have never been a priority for the State in terms of sustained support.
This is why we continue our fundraising efforts and promote various initiatives to ensure our shelters remain open. One such initiative is Kilómetros de Cambio, founded and led by Deborah Maldonado since 2023. This initiative consisted of a 3-day relay race, with 53 ambassadors running 53 stretches across Puerto Rico on May 16, 17 and 18. The event included the participation of public figures and aimed to raise $500,000. By the time the race began, we had already exceeded last year’s fundraising goal of $183,000. We hope that the funds raised will be allocated to shelters to meet immediate needs.
Additionally, we are working to influence public policies that will support the stabilization and sustainability of shelters. We are advocating for Senate Joint Resolution 11, which calls for the allocation of one million dollars to be distributed among the nine shelters that make up our network. At the same time, we are monitoring and educating legislators about Senate Bill 430, which proposes to modify the public-private partnership law so that shelters can be built and managed under this model.
This poses a great risk, as the services provided by shelters do not align with this framework and cannot be monetized, as doing so would create barriers to accessing life-saving services. Lastly, we are supporting another bill that aims to establish a recurring state fund for shelters to cover the essential costs needed to ensure the continuity of their services.
We must continue advocating for shelters and educating the broader community about the consequences of losing federal funding. People need to help amplify our voices and support our efforts by raising awareness of the work that shelters do and by making donations to meet their ongoing, day-to-day needs.
Our commitment is to keep fighting so that survivors always have all the resources they need to heal.
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At the Fundación de Mujeres en Puerto Rico, we believe that supporting the work of the Red Nacional de Albergues de Violencia de Género is an urgent and essential responsibility. Shelters are not only places of refuge: they are emergency rooms that save lives and serve as the first line of defense for women and their children facing domestic violence. In today’s climate, where federal funding cuts and the lack of state support threaten their existence, it is more critical than ever to join their efforts. The tireless work of these shelters, offering comprehensive services in safety, healthcare, legal aid, psychological support, and economic empowerment, upholds the lives, dignity, and recovery of survivors. Defending and strengthening this network means defending gender equity, the right to live free from violence, and the construction of a more just country. That is why, our foundation reaffirms our commitment to accompany, amplify, and support their work, so that no survivor is ever left without a safe door to turn to.