Rapidly accumulating data is showing a disturbing trend during COVID-19 quarantine life—an uptick in domestic violence incidents. With families sheltering in place, it’s become increasingly difficult for domestic violence victims to escape from their situations and seek help. As such, College HUNKS Moving Company (HUNKS) is offering free moving services to anyone fleeing domestic violence. HUNKS is now a resource on the national domestic violence hotline and is working with safe houses and counselors and domestic violence shelters directly in the 130 markets where they have franchises.
“Home isolation, however vital to the fight against the pandemic, is giving still more power to the abuser,” said Dr. Marianne Hester, a sociologist who studies abusive relationships. People fleeing an abusive domestic situation need to remove themselves from the home they’ve been living in and either take up residence elsewhere or go to a shelter.”
College HUNKS Hauling Junk & Moving was originally founded by two college friends in 2003. Now, it has over 100 franchises supplying full-service, tech-enabled residential and commercial moving, junk removal, donation pickups, and labor services in the United States and Canada. HUNKS, which stands for Honest, Uniformed, Nice, Knowledgeable, Service, consider themselves a socially conscious organization and have a national partnership with Feeding Children Everywhere.
“As a Purpose-Driven, Socially-Conscious national moving and junk removal company, we want to help our communities and neighbors during these unique times, while also staying in business as an essential service,” “We saw the national news reports that domestic violence is significantly increasing due to the economic pressures and the stay-at-home orders,” said Nick Friedman, CEO. “We wanted to do our part to help alleviate an unintended consequence.”
Here’s how it works. A certified domestic violence shelter needs to approve any victims requesting a free move to ensure that the victim is supported throughout the transition as well as for the safety of the moving team and victim. Anyone in a domestic violence situation should first contact the police or a domestic violence shelter immediately. The shelter will contact HUNKS at NationalAccounts@CHHJ.com and the movers will make themselves available and help coordinate.
