Providing a safe space for victims

Denise Fonseca recalls sitting in tired, worn out rooms at the Hays County Government Center in 2018 and 2019. She was a victim of domestic abuse and spent time in those waiting rooms preparing to tell her story.

Fonseca was abused for 551 days, enduring years of broken bones, repeated death threats and hopelessness. Fonseca, a Dripping Springs resident, called the Hays County Sheriff’s Office for help in January 2018. After 19 months of waiting in those rooms at the government center, telling her story to attorneys and testifying in court, her abuser was convicted on three counts of continuous family violence.

“For the next 19 months, I journeyed through the criminal justice system that is when I encountered the victim waiting room,” Fonseca said. “When you’re at your most debilitated, your most anxious, your most vulnerable, this is where you wait to be believed.”

After her time in the waiting rooms, Fonseca knew she wanted to help make those rooms on the second level of the government center that had seen better days into a comforting and inviting place. The rooms, which she said included “uncomfortable chairs with the upholstery coming off, shabby carpets and drab-colored walls,” have been transformed through Fonseca’s nonprofit Room2Hope.

Fonseca helped fund the restoration with $2,584 in restitution she received. The rooms, which were previously painted white and had minimal furniture, are now painted in light blue and lavender The rooms are now filled with magazines, paintings, drawings and games for kids.

“At its most fundamental level, Room2Hope is about changing tired, waiting rooms into comforting spaces for those victims who are waiting to testify in a court of law,” Fonseca said. “Room2Hope’s challenge was to change these into nurturing spaces that foster hope.”

With the rooms transformed, Hays County held a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday and welcomed those invited to tour the project.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Lon Shell, who sponsored the idea in commissioners court, said the rooms will greatly benefit the county’s victim assistance coordinators in the jobs they do.

“They have a very important job and I think these rooms will help them be able to do a better job and serve those that we ask them to serve,” Shell said.

District Attorney Wes Mau added that the new rooms provide a reassuring place for victims waiting to retell their stories.

“I think you’ll see that asking a person to have those kind of conversations in a room that is warm and is soft, and is accepting, is going to be easier, even if just a little bit than it was before,” Mau said. “These rooms did the job, they were a place for people to wait. They were comfortable enough but they really didn’t give the kind of sense of welcome and the sense of acceptance that I think you’ll get when you see the rooms.

“Denise, with her dedication, her energy that she brought to this project, has shown me how important it is that we continue to think of these rooms as a fundamental part of what we do,” Mau added. “I hope going forward we will continue to keep that in mind.”

Fonseca has aspirations of expanding Room2Hope through Texas and nationally to provide hope for those who are in the same position she once was.

“I have a dream. My dream is to continue Room2Hope county by county across Texas and to eventually take it national,” Fonseca said. “But this dream only comes to fruition if people donate … I hope donations will help to keep this mission alive.”

For more information about Room2Hope, visit the website at room2hope.com.