A Maryland county will continue to fund a safe house for abused women that has been plagued with problems for decades.
Prince George's County will continue to fund the nonprofit Family Crisis Center's shelter despite calls to close its doors, The Washington Post reports. Maryland law requires marriage license fees collected by the county go toward the nonprofit. Those fees totaled $385,000 last year.
Last year, the director of the Family Crisis Center of Prince George's County was fired after unlivable conditions were revealed in the home. The center is one of the county's only domestic violence shelters for women and children.
The substandard services and battered conditions prompted Democrat County Executive Rushern L. Baker III to submit a bill to the state General Assembly in March that would allow the fees to go to other organizations. Baker withdrew that bill last week.
Baker spokesman Barry Hudson says lawmakers agreed fee usage should be more flexible, but didn't agree on pushing the bill forward.
