The Emmonak Women's Shelter in the community of Emmonak has been expecting to have to close their doors at the end of summer or sooner because of funding issues.

Shelter officials said that information on a grant applied for wouldn’t be available until September, the current funding was running dangerously low.

The shelter has been open in Emmonak for 34 years, it serves Emmonak and 14 outlying communities.

But, on Friday, it was discovered that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had come to the aid of the shelter and filled their empty coffers with a much needed $50,000.

Senator Murkowski had requested that BIA and the shelter work together to come up with a solution. She wrote a letter to BIA on June 11th pointing out the situation in Emmonak and requested emergency funding for the shelter. In that letter the Senator said, “I am extremely concerned that due to financial difficulties and limited resources, the Emmonak shelter may be forced to close its doors as early as mid-June … Domestic violence shelters in remote rural areas of Alaska face a number of obstacles to maintaining sustainable operations such as severe inclement weather, exorbitant energy costs and costly relocation expenses of moving families from abusive homes into shelters.”

In a press release, Senator Murkowski stated, “Every year Alaskans come together to ‘Choose Respect’ and fight the epidemic of abuse in our state, I thank the Bureau of Indian Affairs for working with me to allow these men and women to continue protecting and serving some of the most vulnerable Alaskans.”

The shelter handles a workload of approximately 500 women and children annually.