Stacy Reed, shelter client services manager at the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati, updated the Clermont County Board of Commissioners Oct. 29 on services at the House of Peace (HOP), the agency’s domestic-violence shelter. Reed told the board House of Peace sheltered 174 individuals from January through October 2025 — 112 adults and 62 children — a 41% increase compared with the entire 2024 year.

Reed described the range of abuse survivors experience and emphasized the shelter’s increasing need to address technology-enabled abuse and financial control, noting that the county partnership has helped the shelter provide basic tools such as TracFones. "When we were able to provide her with that TracFone, it was just a sigh of relief," Reed said of one survivor who received a donated phone and later secured housing and employment.

Year-to-date data Reed presented include 325 domestic-violence hotline calls and 66 survivors served through community safe-haven or alternative shelter arrangements when HOP could not provide bed space. House of Peace staff said 60% of survivors exited the program with maintained or obtained income and 80% exited to permanent housing destinations — figures the shelter attributed to workforce development, landlord partnerships and local employer hiring in the Eastgate area.

Reed and YWCA staff described everyday items that make a measurable difference — track phones, safe child care, playground space for children and basic household supports — and thanked the county for partnership and funding that underpins those services. The board had previously approved an application to release marriage-license fee funds to the YWCA for HOP operations for 2025; the item (estimated $37,839.20) was read and approved during the meeting.

Context and next steps: Reed said the shelter operates under trauma-informed principles and that many survivors arrive with little work history or financial independence; workforce programs and community employer relationships are core parts of the shelter’s path to permanent housing. Commissioners accepted the update and had earlier approved both the proclamation recognizing veterans and a separate operation green-light proclamation.

Source: Remarks by Stacy Reed and the BCC minutes on Oct. 29, 2025. Approved county action to release marriage-license fee funds to the YWCA House of Peace is recorded in the meeting minutes.