I don’t know if anyone can understand the strength and courage it takes to up and leave an abusive relationship, unless you have been through it. Imagine though, being stretched thin, lonely, and scared. You reach out to a shelter. Someone experienced, somewhere safe. Some of the people going through the shelter services have never experienced a healthy relationship in their entire lives. They don’t know what it even looks like to have control of a situation, and boundaries are a term never even heard of.
Imagine though, you are welcomed with warmth. Safety is offered… And then nothing. You have a safe space, mostly, but the world doesn’t stop moving and you can’t stay at a shelter forever. Eventually you need to find a way to get back out there and figure out what that’s going to look like now that you’ve left the only world you know. While therapy is a part of the services offered through the emergency housing, the staffing is so short that the most they can manage is immediate crisis intervention and helping the next woman out of a rough situation. Irregular check-ins are done, leaving you just repeating the same story as last time to someone who is only partially listening to make sure you are not a harm to yourself or others. You’re left feeling like a burden, or unwanted. On top of that the shelter is a place for any woman, and sometimes the women who come in turn out to be as dangerous as anything out there so that sense of safety is limited especially with children involved. With lacking support, a woman is much more likely to return to an abusive situation. So simply having a place to lay your head is not nearly enough. Genuine therapy is required. Helping women build new connections in the communities. This all takes time and resources though.
Everything I have said before is based on my perceptions of current events, and a visit from my late teenage years when I was fleeing my first case of domestic violence. This time I was fortunate enough to not stay in the shelter directly, but instead stayed in an apartment through their second stage living program. The situation leading me there wasn’t quite as dire as my teenage years, but still nonetheless urgent and necessary. I was traumatized in different ways, but unbelievably relieved to have a safe place for my son and I in such an inviting communal style living situation. All the other families welcomed us with open arms, and it was through them that gave me the strength and resources to move on in better ways.
Our building was told to be secure, but it became clear that wasn’t really the case. Staff members would walk into our apartments unannounced. We discovered the cameras weren’t being watched when a man and woman broke into our building, had a bath in the laundry sink, had drugs delivered, and stole our laundry out of the machines. Water was cut off with no warning for outside use when ownership became upset about high water bills. No conversation about it. Plants that had been purchased as a healing activity withered and died. At this time parks were closed, and the kids of the building were trapped with nowhere to go other than a closed in and blistering hot gravel pad and slide which even that much was removed as a safety hazard. The most interactions with staff from the interval house occurred when they were unhappy about something, such as toys not being cleaned up promptly in the backyard.
You’re seeming secure housing balanced upon the satisfaction of the people who ran the shelter. Women and children would leave one controlling relationship and be forced into another one. Favoritism occurred. Women and children they liked were given more leeway than those considered less likely to recover. Despite the fact that those are the women who needed the most help. The apartments were a safe haven… for a year. Limited follow-up was made to help the woman on their journey to self-sufficiency. Seeing now that the worker’s contract is outdated and they are understaffed comes as no surprise. The issues we experienced weren’t from a lack of caring, but more an inability to. Without having proper support for themselves, of course they would not be able to provide all the assistance these vulnerable women and children need.
So don’t fool yourselves when it says the shelter is running as usual. I can guarantee you it is not, and the women and children there are not getting the safety and assistance that they so desperately need. These women and children deserve the support and protection of our community. They definitely do not deserve to be ignored and mistreated as though they are second class citizens.
On one last note, don’t punish the women and children of the shelter. I have read many comments saying they will boycott donating to the shelter in the future. This further hinders the clients of the shelter. Instead, speak up. Demand change and accountability. This is our community. Let’s make sure we are proud of it.
Vicky Haaksman