The lowdown on Healey

Could we please stop talking about Kerry Healey's odious campaign commercials and start looking at the abysmal record of this self-styled advocate for women victimized by violence?

It's fine if some members of the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence want to excoriate the lieutenant governor for her misleading ads and her despicable campaign tactics, but Healey's actual record is far more damning.

The Romney-Healey administration this year slashed funding for one of the most well-respected domestic violence programs in Massachusetts, forcing the New England Learning Center for Women in Transition to close its emergency shelter in Greenfield last month.

This champion of women's safety slashed state aid 33 percent for an equally venerable domestic violence shelter in Brockton, forcing the cash-starved program to cut its staff or beg donations from a community short on disposable income. (Brockton residents last month came through with $60,000 to help Womansplace pay for its employees' medical insurance.)

This protector of womanhood also eliminated funding for an 18-bed shelter in Quincy that every year turns away 150 to 200 families in need because of a shortage of space.

Even as it eviscerated funding for proven programs to benefit survivors of domestic violence, the state Department of Social Services in July returned $24 million of its budget to the state treasury unspent. Of that total, $450,000 was specifically budgeted for domestic violence services. Maybe DSS couldn't figure out how to spend that money; advocates for battered women could have.

"There are only 30 beds from Boston to the Cape, and they are always filled," said Stephanie Flaherty, the director of DOVE, the Quincy shelter whose vocal supporters pressured DSS to extend funding through this year. "This is a public safety issue. Families forced to stay in violent households often come to harm. Somehow, we are missing the big picture."

Sheldon Barr is president of Health Care of Southeastern Massachusetts, which operates Womansplace in Brockton. The state argued that it cut the shelter's funding because its costs were higher than comparably sized shelters. What that equation ignores is the success Womansplace has had retaining staff and providing bilingual services, child care, and job training.

"This is hard work. We are not about to cast out staff members who have dedicated 10 or 15 years of their lives to helping these families," Barr said. "There is a danger when you reduce staff. You need more than one person on at all times in case someone comes by with less-than-admirable intentions toward these women."

Shelters are being shortchanged, in part, because of a policy shift that has been underway for more than a year now at DSS designed to move social service dollars out of expensive residential settings and into the community. But, like the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in Massachusetts more than 30 years ago, this grand scheme is being undertaken before community services are in place. Battered women need a place to live.

Attorney Catherine Greene was the first co chair of the governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence. She did not sign the letter decrying Healey's campaign ads. She thinks the betrayal of battered women runs deeper than this political season.

"On the heels of successful efforts to raise awareness [ of domestic violence], we are now doing a disservice to victims by encouraging them to seek services and then failing to provide adequate funding to meet their needs," she said.

Could we now put to rest the patronizing notion that women are not supporting Healey because she is a thin blonde? She lost female voters because, when you get past her rhetoric, her support for programs that benefit vulnerable women is about as thin as she is.

Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com.