Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence

Alaska tribes could gain the power to prosecute domestic violence and sexual assault in Native villages as part of a pilot program under consideration in the U.S. Senate.

The program would have Alaska tribes fill some of the law enforcement gaps in remote communities where people don’t have ready access to a police force or state troopers.

Michelle Demmert, policy director of the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center, told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Wednesday in vivid terms what that lack of law enforcement looks like.

“In a homicide case, it took 11 hours for law enforcement to appear. The 13-year-old victim’s body laid outside, across the street from the family’s home,” Demmert testified. “Sometimes these crime scenes are like this for days on end. We have lost our loved ones and are powerless to do anything more than sit vigil, protecting a crime scene until law enforcement arrives.”

Demmert also told of a violence victim who was stuck in a village in the Interior for 17 days, needing medical care. Bad weather prevented troopers from coming to investigate.

“The circumstances described are repeated throughout remote Alaska,” she said. “They will continue until our local governments have the authority and resources they need to address public safety.”

Alaska often ranks as the nation’s most dangerous state for women, and Alaska Native women suffer crime rates much higher than the state average, Demmert told senators.

“Don’t tie our hands,” she said, pleading for Congress to give Alaska tribes law enforcement powers.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski authored the pilot program. It would give 30 Alaska tribes the kind of jurisdiction Lower 48 tribes have over domestic violence and related crimes. The tribes would be able to prosecute anyone — Native or not — who commits such crimes against a tribal member in their villages. The number of participating tribes could be expanded beyond 30.

No one at the hearing spoke against the idea.

Murkowski said she believes the U.S. attorney general will work with tribes to ensure tribal justice systems can protect a defendant’s rights. Murkowski acknowledged that the idea of tribes prosecuting violent crime makes some people uncomfortable. It’s especially controversial when the tribe prosecutes a non-member, as federal law allows to protect domestic violence victims who are tribal members.

“What more do we need to do?” Murkowski asked an advocate for tribal jurisdiction. “Because I’ve got some convincing (to do) with some colleagues who are not sure that this is going to be ‘too experimental,’ that this justice will be too experimental. My response right now is, in many cases, there is no justice. That is the experiment that is happening: no justice.”

She drafted the program to be included in a bill to renew the Violence Against Women Act. Alaska Congressman Don Young has supported a similar program for five Alaska tribes in a VAWA renewal bill that passed the House in March.

This story is a collaboration between the Anchorage Daily News and Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on government integrity and quality of life issues.

Two years after leaving the University of Wisconsin amid allegations of workplace bullying, Dr. Barbara Knox, UW’s former top child abuse pediatrician, is drawing similar scrutiny at her new job in Alaska.

Seven current and former employees of Providence Alaska Medical Center say they made dozens of complaints about Knox’s management and medical judgment to supervisors, with no response for months.

Knox now heads Alaska CARES, a statewide child abuse forensic clinic operated by Providence that, over the past two years, has lost its entire medical staff to resignations or eliminated positions, the Anchorage Daily News has learned.

Providence, which houses Alaska CARES, is investigating the clinic’s workplace environment. Two sources with direct knowledge of the clinic operations confirmed that Knox was placed on leave pending an investigation. Those sources declined to be named for fear of retaliation. Alaska CARES declined to confirm Knox’s employment status.

Knox formerly led the UW’s Child Protection Program in partnership with American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison. She left that job in 2019 after being placed on paid leave while the UW investigated claims that Knox bullied and intimidated colleagues who disagreed with her clinical approach. A settlement agreement shielded details of her exit from future employers. That included Providence, which hired Knox as Alaska’s top child abuse pediatrician later that year.

Although Knox once testified she had never made a mistaken diagnosis of child abuse, Wisconsin Watch found a dozen instances in which Knox’s suspicions of abuse were rejected by officials in the criminal justice system, by child welfare workers and medical specialists. Other defendants, proclaiming innocence, remain in prison and have appealed their cases.

On Friday, a Dane County, Wisconsin jury quickly acquitted a day care provider who the state criminally charged after Knox declared a child in her care was the victim of “obvious child abuse.” Knox had been scheduled to be a “key witness” in the five-day trial, but the prosecution removed her name from the witness list, and Judge Susan Crawford ordered both parties to refrain from mentioning her findings.

In Anchorage, all six Alaska CARES medical staff members there when Knox took over  — advanced nurse practitioners and forensic nurses charged with examining children believed to be victims of abuse — quit or saw their positions eliminated over the past year.

Sarah Duran-Wood, a former forensic nurse at the clinic, said she believes in the work of her colleagues who remain at the clinic but questions Knox’s leadership. Duran-Wood said she brought concerns about Knox to Providence officials multiple times without a response before her position was eliminated in March 2021.

“I felt articulate in my concerns,” she said. “We all were. And it was swept under the rug.”

“Providence is aware of increasing concerns about the workplace environment at Alaska CARES,” a spokesperson for the hospital said in a statement. “We take these concerns very seriously, and per our normal process, Providence is conducting an investigation into those concerns.”

Anastasia Kenney, a former family care coordinator at Alaska CARES who also described a toxic work environment, said that families can still safely bring children to the clinic, despite the problems.

“There’s still a strong, competent team that’s dedicated to the care of Alaska’s most vulnerable children and families,” she said.

Knox declined to comment through a Providence spokesperson. 

High stakes for child abuse team

The new job put Knox in charge of a department that makes medical assessments about whether a child has been abused.

The stakes are high: The medical opinions of Knox and her staff can be used by agencies such as the Office of Children’s Services and law enforcement to take children into state custody or can lead to criminal charges for alleged abusers.

In this 2019 image posted on Twitter, Dr. Barbara Knox is seen being inducted as president of the Academy on Violence and Abuse. Alaska CARES hired Dr. Barbara Knox as Alaska’s top child abuse pediatrician after the University of Wisconsin suspended her in 2019 for allegedly bullying colleagues. She is facing similar allegations in Alaska.

At first, staff members at Alaska CARES were star-struck by Knox, Duran-Wood said. Knox had a national reputation for her expertise and had been a frequent speaker at conferences.

Then in February 2020, a few months after Knox started work in Alaska, Wisconsin Watch published its investigation into Knox’s treatment of a Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, family who said she wrongfully accused them of abusing their 9-month-old son. The Anchorage Daily News, in partnership with Wisconsin Watch, wrote a follow-up story days later.

But before ADN published its story, a director at Providence emailed dozens connected to the child welfare system around Alaska, warning them of the additional impending negative news story about Knox.

Bryant Skinner, the director of forensic services, assured recipients that the hospital had thoroughly vetted Knox with background checks and pre-employment inquiries, and that Alaska has a “rigorous licensing process.”

He sent the email to more than 75 people in the child protection community, including Alaska CARES staff, law enforcement, lawyers, nonprofit advocates and public school employees.

“We are confident Dr. Knox is the right person for this role.” Skinner wrote. “And a great addition to our care team.”

Knox dismisses news reports

Knox explained the 2020 news story to staff at her new job as a hazard of working as a child abuse pediatrician, two former staffers said.

“It was, ‘This is somebody who abused their children and they’re trying to discredit me,’ ” Duran-Wood said. “It was very open and shut.”

“We believed her and discounted the story,” said Kenney. “Then our team unfortunately experienced similar bullying over the next year and a half.”

Dr. Barbara Knox is seen in a Catholic Health Association of the United States video recognizing the work of Alaska CARES, a statewide child abuse forensic clinic. Speaking in the video, Knox says the clinic aims to get involved early in child abuse cases. “To be able to really effectively decrease and eliminate child maltreatment, it takes everyone in a community’s participation,” she says.

According to interviews with seven current and former employees at Alaska CARES, concerns about Knox developed around the spring of 2020, an already tense time when the team was figuring out how to work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Five of the seven people interviewed asked not to be named because they still work for Alaska CARES, in the Providence system or are seeking employment.

At least three nonmedical staff have left Alaska CARES during Knox’s tenure in addition to the entire medical staff’s departure, said Duran-Wood. Kenney blamed a toxic workplace environment.

“All four of our seasoned, wonderful advanced nurse practitioners who had been with Alaska CARES and Providence for many years all quit within a year solely because of their treatment by Dr. Knox,” Kenney said.

Kenney said the final straw came for her when, in front of a group working on a case, Knox “cut a co-worker off in midsentence who was speaking to the team by throwing her palm up about four inches from my co-worker’s face and angrily said, ‘You stop talking.’”

Knox then refused to talk to the co-worker or answer her medical questions for the remainder of the case, Kenney recalled.

“Dr. Knox did that to our co-worker, and Providence did nothing,” she said.

‘They were wrong’

Other staff members criticized Knox’s approach to families, and how she would not tolerate dissenting medical opinions.

In one case that another co-worker was handling, Knox blamed an injury on intentional abuse that others considered a potential accident.

“Rather than (Alaska Office of Children’s Services) and advocacy talking to me, they called her,” Duran-Wood said. “She made decisions. And OCS followed those decisions. And they were wrong.”

The following Monday, according to Duran-Wood, Knox called multiple radiologists looking for someone to agree with her opinion about the cause of an injury.

“None of them would,” Duran-Wood said. Still, Knox’s judgment “resulted in an infant being removed from the custody of a nursing mother for over a month,” she said.

Veteran child protection advocate Pam Karalunas’s experience of Knox differed. The former head of the Alaska Children’s Alliance said, “In my experience, she’s always been respectful, always eager to learn about new cultures . . . and passionate about keeping kids safe.”

Karalunas said Knox reached out to her, a lifelong Alaskan, for help understanding Alaska Native cultures after she was told she was being insensitive. The two have had a professional relationship for years. Karalunas has invited Knox to speak at several child maltreatment conferences in Anchorage in the past, and added Knox was “always a very popular speaker.”

Former and current staff members described lodging dozens of complaints, first through supervisor Skinner and then on up the Providence chain.

“I went to my manager. I went to his manager,” said Duran-Wood. “They seemed to all side with her.”

Providence did not answer questions about how it handled complaints about Knox.

“We will not comment on or share details about specific investigations or personnel actions taken regarding caregivers,” Providence said in a statement through spokesperson Mikal Canfield.

UW settlement shields reasons for leave

A settlement agreement Knox made with the UW upon resigning may have prevented Providence from hearing the whole story behind her departure from the children’s hospital in Madison.

Under Wisconsin public records law, Wisconsin Watch obtained a document showing University of Wisconsin officials agreed to keep the terms of her departure secret from future employers and credentialing processes unless she first released them from liability.

Internal UW hospital communications revealed that top officials there knew Knox was accused of mistreating her colleagues and patients’ families.

In an April 2019 warning letter, the UW Health pediatrics chair told Knox to change her interactions with colleagues and patients or face disciplinary action. Dr. Ellen Wald wrote that two patient families had complained, and Knox’s colleagues reported “feeling intimidated” by her and feared retaliation if they “disagreed with (Knox’s) approach to a clinical or administrative matter.”

Co-workers reported Knox’s interactions with patients seemed more focused on “ ‘collecting evidence’ than interacting with the patient and family,” Wald wrote.

Two months later, in June 2019, the hospital suspended Knox and prohibited her from practicing while they investigated complaints about her behavior.

Knox’s October resignation was voluntary, according to the settlement agreement. Upon her departure, the hospital gave Knox $20,000 and was required by the agreement to send the Alaska medical board a scripted letter that said her administrative leave “did not relate to dishonesty, clinical skills, medical diagnostic abilities, or incorrect medical diagnoses,” and “no disciplinary action” was taken against her.

What it did not say: That Knox’s alleged bullying prompted the leave, during which she was barred from contacting patients or co-workers.

Alaska medical board had ‘general knowledge’ about Knox

A spokesperson for the Alaska State Medical Board said the board had “general knowledge” of UW’s reasons for placing Knox on leave but had not been provided the letter detailing the reasons. Wisconsin Watch shared the letter with the board; the spokesperson said the information “would likely not have resulted in a different decision by the Board to issue a license to Dr. Knox.”

Recognizing and reporting child abuse can save lives, but labeling accidental injuries and medical problems as abuse can destroy the lives of otherwise stable families. And wrongful allegations can lead to criminal charges, landing innocent caregivers in court.

In Wisconsin, when presented with the allegation that Knox triggered child abuse investigations that were later unsubstantiated, UW Health spokesperson Tom Russell cited state law requiring physicians to report a reasonable suspicion of child abuse.

“The School of Medicine and Public Health took appropriate action in line with standard practices for reviewing human resources concerns,” Russell wrote about UW’s handling of Knox’s exit. UW was not at liberty to discuss personnel matters, he added.

The Child Protection Program’s staff and physicians, he wrote, are “committed to continuous improvement.” The program in 2019 “underwent a comprehensive review … to ensure that the health and wellbeing of our young patients and their families continue to come first.”

UW Health declined interview requests on behalf of staff and administrators.

UW Health also did not answer a question about whether it had investigated how many families were harmed by interactions with Knox. Nor did the spokesperson give specifics of how it plans to safeguard against wrongful diagnoses of child abuse in the future.

After hearing concerns about Knox’s interactions with families, Dr. Sabrina Butteris, the pediatrics department’s vice chair, wrote in a Feb. 27, 2019, email to the department’s chair: “I wonder how many other families there are out there like them. And how many families from disadvantaged groups that don’t have a voice may have been treated the same or worse.”

“This leaves a pit in my stomach,” Butteris wrote in the message to Wald. “And I do not have clarity about what to do about it.”

Wisconsin Watch reporter Dee J. Hall contributed to this story, which was a collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and the Anchorage Daily News. The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

This article first appeared on WisconsinWatch.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Ketchikan nonprofit Women in Safe Homes, or WISH, is looking to train local bartenders and waitstaff on how to recognize and prevent domestic and sexual violence.

J.D. Martin, a member of the education department of WISH, says the new program is called Safe Bars. Martin says it’s part of a larger suite of initiatives that aim to strengthen and educate the community by giving them the tools necessary to recognize an escalating situation and intervene if needed.

“Sometimes when we’re talking about domestic violence, people will think, you know, you hear the stats, and people then feel moved to like, well, what can I do to have a positive impact on the community and on people you might know who are victims of violence. And so we have a couple programs that are geared towards empowering individuals to be able to speak up when they see things,” Martin said.

Safe Bars is a two-hour training that helps those in hospitality better recognize the signs of sexual violence. Martin says a handful of bar and restaurant staff have already taken the training. Eventually, she says WISH hopes to have bar and restaurant managers help facilitate the class.

Martin says Safe Bars is a part of a larger WISH initiative aimed at teaching people how to recognize and respond to signs of domestic and sexual violence. According to a 2020 study by Alaska’s Council of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, almost 50% of women and 30% of men are likely to experience some form of domestic violence in their life.

Another WISH training, the Green Dot program, also focuses on prevention and has been taught worldwide to people of all age groups. Last year WISH started a version of the program for high school students in Ketchikan. The class is limited to 15 participants but also comes with a $100 incentive to any student who completes the four-hour course.

Martin says these trainings are free and available to anyone. Though the organization is called Women in Safe Homes, it provides services to people of any gender. Any business, organization, or group that thinks that this initiative would be beneficial for them is invited to reach out and organize training.

WISH recently held a grand opening for its new shelter at the former Ketchikan Regional Youth Facility, but Martin says WISH is still taking donations and offering services at its First Avenue shelter. Martin says WISH is aiming to move into the new shelter by Nov. 22.

Last week a woman in Anchorage went public on social media with an allegation of sexual assault, prompting other people to share their stories. 

By the end of the week, a group of Twitter accounts published a spreadsheet of names. It grew fast — from a few hundred to more than 500 people before the list came down three days later. 

The list — first called The Alaska Abuser List and later changed to Questionable People of Alaska — is anonymous and crowdsourced. In most cases, there are no specific allegations backing up the claim that a person is an abuser. In rare cases, organizers linked to a person’s name in the sex offender registry or noted court case numbers. But the vast majority are just listed by name.

The list’s organizers did not want to be interviewed on the record, but they said in social media posts that by publishing the list, they’re trying to bring some accountability to abusers in Alaska.

Advocates and law enforcement say this type of vigilante justice may not be the best way to do that. There’s the risk of being sued for defamation, among other considerations.

A similar national spreadsheet, called the Sh**ty Media Men list, gained attention when it was published during the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017. At least one person named on it filed a $1.5 million defamation lawsuit after the list’s creator revealed her identity.

In Alaska, more than half of women will experience intimate partner violence, sexual violence or both in their lifetimes, but most perpetrators will not get prosecuted.

Mandy Cole, the Executive Director of Juneau’s domestic and sexual violence shelter, AWARE, said a list like this can be a way for victims to take back control.

“I think it goes back to that feeling of just like powerlessness and hopelessness that you get when someone takes advantage of your body in that way and, for many of us, it doesn’t feel like there’s recourse,” Cole said.

She said going through the legal channels of filing a report and getting a medical examination is an emotionally costly prospect.

“The idea of then subjecting yourself to more trauma in order to get a result of just being believed and heard is hard,” she said. 

Cole said she understands the motivation behind wanting to say “this happened to me” without having to do all of the things that go along with making an official report to law enforcement. 

She doesn’t know who made Alaska’s list, but she thinks it’s more about catharsis for survivors of abuse than it is about punishment for people named on it. 

People sometimes rely on a whisper network in situations where they can’t get justice — sharing information between friends and colleagues, warning people away from abusers. 

Cole said the power of a whisper network lies in the trust people have in the people they’re sharing and getting information from. The people in a whisper network know each other, and they know the people they’re whispering about. 

“And so that is the information that I need — not necessarily like, you know, forensic evidence,” she said. 

But Cole said these networks also lose some of the power of trusted secrets shared among friends when they go public. The bar gets higher, and people want proof and evidence. 

“I mean, I think that’s how our culture decided to solve this issue — once it’s in the public sphere, it has to be about things that you can prove,” she said. 

Cole and others said this spreadsheet is a symptom of a much larger problem in Alaska. 

The majority of sexual assaults are never reported to the police and every year hundreds of thousands of instances of domestic violence nationwide go unreported. 

And Juneau Police Department Lt. Krag Campbell said just a fraction of what is reported will be prosecuted successfully. Still, he said he probably would have encouraged the list’s organizers to find another way to tackle the problem. 

“I would say they just have to use a lot of caution. Because, they’re throwing out a lot of information that could be damaging to people — it might not be justifiable, because they’re not vetting the source of information,” he said.

He looked at the list when it was published and said it was difficult to figure out who was being accused of what. The list had just two categories, sexual assault and domestic violence, but many of the names were not categorized in either. 

Campbell is looking for more specificity, in part because an officer in the Juneau Police Department is named on the list. Like so many of the names on the list, the claims are unsubstantiated. But Campbell said he takes the allegation seriously. 

He said the officer went through a background check to get a job in the force, and Campbell didn’t hear of any allegations or even rumors that came up in that investigation. 

 “Could it still be [that] things are out there? You know, there’s always the chance,” he said. “But we just, we just don’t have any information to go off of, and our plan is to at least look into it.”

Campbell wouldn’t say if he talked directly to the officer about the list; he called it a personnel matter. 

“It would be good, you know, if somebody does have an allegation that they believe is true and accurate, then, is to make a report,” Campbell said.

And if that person doesn’t want to go to Juneau Police with an accusation, he suggests making it to another agency like the Alaska State Troopers or a sexual assault and domestic violence advocate. 

Campbell said he’s cautious of an unsubstantiated list of allegations because he’s dealt with instances of false reporting throughout his career — not just confined to rape and sexual assault. 

Data shows that it’s not common for people to falsely report rape or sexual violence. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center estimates the rate of false reporting at somewhere between 2% and 10% of cases. 

Isaac Weber says he’s one of those rare cases. He found out his name was on the list from an ex-girlfriend. 

“It was just really a stomach-dropping moment. I couldn’t believe it. I went through the list and saw that it was, in fact, there — my name along with a bunch of other people that I knew all in a row,” he said. “I couldn’t think of what I could have possibly done to deserve a place on this list next to all of these disgusting people. Just being roped in with that made me feel very small in the moment.” 

His mom, Sarah Weber, works in addiction and mental health services. She describes her professional and personal lives as trauma-informed. She said it was surreal and difficult to talk to her son about what may have led up to someone putting his name on the list. 

“I absolutely grilled him,” she said.

Isaac had similar conversations with his current girlfriend and older sister, and he said he felt hopeless. 

“Every part of me tells me that they trust me completely and that they know that I would never do this. But that irrational anxiety that just keeps nipping away at my head tells me that everybody kind of believes it, and that’s really scary,” he said. 

Setting that fear aside, Isaac and his mother say their family is intimately familiar with sexual violence and the toll it takes on people. He said that being falsely accused of something is hard, but it doesn’t compare to the experience victims of violence and sexual assault go through every day. 

They believe they know who put his name on the list. They shared a screenshot of a text-thread appearing to corroborate their account that his name was included as a cruel joke. But they know that’s probably not enough to prove Isaac’s innocence to people who have never met him.

Sarah Weber fears that this allegation will follow her son throughout his life. But there’s also the problem of pushing back against an effort they both believe is valid. She said the unfortunate thing about the list is that there’s a need for it. 

“It feels like for some of the women that were posting names on there, it’s like their only way to get any sort of justice. And for lack of better words, that sucks,” she said. “That sucks to know that … an anonymous Twitter feed is the best that some of these women can get. It is really disheartening.” 

Both said if they had seen the list and Isaac’s name hadn’t been on it, they’d have assumed everyone on it had committed a crime. 

This is the tough spot the family is in. They say they’re concerned that the inclusion of names of people who don’t belong on the list lessens its impact. 

Sarah Weber feels her own discomfort and sees her son’s discomfort, but she thinks there are probably people on that list who deserve to be there. 

“Having the discomfort of their names put on the list versus the discomfort and pain they’ve caused real victims is like small potatoes. It’s nothing,” she said. 

“Drops in a pond,” Isaac added. 

If you’re a survivor of sexual assault, ProPublica and the Anchorage Daily News compiled this Alaska Sexual Assault Survivor Guide.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Sarah Weber’s name. 

An anonymous, crowdsourced document known as the Alaska Abuser List is circulating on social media, accusing anyone named on it of abuse ranging from domestic violence to sexual assault.

By Saturday morning there were 342 names on the list, including a police officer and the owner of an Anchorage restaurant. The list doesn’t include detailed allegations against each person or evidence to back up specific claims of abuse.

Several people named on the list appear to have lengthy Courtview records.

It’s not clear yet who created the list. At least four Twitter accounts are being used to collect names. Messages sent to two Twitter accounts involved in curating it have not been returned, and a third who shared the list hasn’t responded either.

The list’s creators wrote that they weren’t compiling the list to encourage violence against the people on it but to bring “accountability for their actions and safety for everyone.” 

A similar spreadsheet, called the “Sh**ty Media Men” list, gained national attention when it was published during the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017. The controversial list documented allegations of abusive behavior from men in the media and publishing worlds.

That list was intended to be anonymous. At least one person on it filed a defamation lawsuit after the list’s creator revealed her identity.  

Editor’s note: We removed a direct link and a tweet that had a link to the list from this story. 

After more than $1 million in renovations, a building that was a juvenile jail will soon reopen as a shelter for survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault from Ketchikan and surrounding communities.

The former Ketchikan Regional Youth Facility opened in 2002 as a detention center housing up to 10 children. The state Department of Health and Social Services closed it in 2016 citing high costs and low usage. The jail was built on city land, and when it closed, the city took the building back. After renovations, the city transferred the property to Women in Safe Homes, or WISH.

Five years later, former cell walls have been knocked out to create larger spaces. Concrete beds and metal toilets are gone. In their place is a decidedly warmer decor.

“We have some wood paneling on the walls that matches the wood paneling in the ceiling,” said WISH executive director Agnes Moran. “We have much larger windows in the rooms that look out over the green space.”

Walls are painted in pastels. Bedspreads have colorful designs.

“The colors are very natural. They mirror the outside, so it’s shades of bright green and beige,” Moran said. “It’s a very uplifting feeling in here.”

There are also resources for adults and children nearby: Ketchikan Public Health Center is across the parking lot; public schools are within walking distance; there’s an on-site legal advocate; a classroom.

There are roughly 30 beds, the same as the previous shelter. Four shared bedrooms house six people apiece, but three smaller rooms with a single set of bunk beds each are set aside for men or others who need separate accommodations.

“That gives us a lot more flexibility,” Moran said. “We can deal with people who probably should be in a shelter, but maybe they have mental health issues, and they can’t stand the congregate living. We have father-child combinations, and right now if we bring in a father with his kids, we have to give up a whole six beds.”

Speaking of kids, Moran said she’s especially excited about a children’s play area in one wing of the building. There’s an indoor playroom and a covered outdoor area where First City Rotary plans to build a playground funded by proceeds from the organization’s annual rubber duck race.

“In our old building, our shelter just wasn’t — there was no place for kids,” she said. “It’s three stories, it filled the lot it was on, it was dark, there were way too many places to lose track of them, and they just had nowhere to expend their energy at all.”

Saturday’s grand opening marks the culmination of a four-year effort by WISH and the city of Ketchikan. Together, they secured $1.4 million in government grants and private-sector funding, including two federal Community Development Block Grants that together total nearly $1 million. Moran said WISH took out a $236,000 mortgage to cover the remaining costs of the $1.6 million project, and the organization is selling customizable bricks for an “empowerment wall” at the shelter to pay down the loan.

Ketchikan Mayor Dave Kiffer is a teacher at Ketchikan’s state-run jail. He said the facility’s transformation has been remarkable.

“Those of us who had dealings here in the past are actually shocked to see how beautiful and welcoming this is. When the idea first came up four years ago about using this facility, my first thought was, ‘Hmm. It’s a jail,’” Kiffer said. “But it’s not anymore. And this is great.”

Ketchikan Indian Community Vice President Trixie Kalkins-Bennett offered encouragement to the nonprofit’s workers who will work directly with those who seek shelter here.

“As you know, it may take a few tries, and you may expect disappointment but feel peace and pride in your heart that the love and strength you give to each and every survivor is making a profound difference in the lives of women, men and families of southern Southeast Alaska,” she said. “Congratulations on this beautiful shelter, this place of healing and growth. Gunalchéesh, Haw’aa, Nt’oyaxsn.”

WISH plans to open the shelter for domestic and sexual abuse survivors from Ketchikan, Metlakatla, Prince of Wales Island, Wrangell and Petersburg next month.

WISH operates a 24-hour phone line for people experiencing sexual or domestic violence. Call 907-225-9474 or toll-free at 1-800-478-9474.