Reply #131: I have some experience. Chair of the Board for a Shelter

[kurtyboy]

for a few years. I don't know about how the shelter in this place was run, but we had pretty strict rules at ours. Something like an unauthorized visitor was a first-strike-yer-out offense in every single case I know of.

As RobinA says, the security of the women and children--all of them--is the main concern. When one of the residents threatens that safety--of a couple of dozen others (in our shelter)--the rule must be enforced rigidly.

Now, we might have gone an extra few yards and helped to arrange for alternative shelter, in consideration of the children. But that's not the prime issue.

One other comment--four months in a shelter is pretty darned nice to be able to provide. We only allowed such long stays by exception--we simply didn't have the beds, and the incoming demand was so high, that a two-month plan was the rule. The organization I work with has tried for years to be able to provide long-term "transistional housing", but we just can't get the grants and donations to make it a reality yet.

For now, its crisis management, and that type of management SEVERELY LIMITS flexibility, as far as rule-enforcement goes.

But, again, I know nothing about the shelter in question, except that the one quote at the end was one of the stupidest I've seen in print from someone who expects to continue to get public donations. Idiot!!

EDIT TO ADD:

I'll cut a minor bit of slack for the moment on the quote---it sometimes happens that a reporter spins a story against the grain, for whatever reason. The fact that safety of other residents wasn't really mentioned in the story is a curious omission to me--I wonder why the reporter didn't try to explain the reason for the rule....

And one other point---It is not impossible for her to have met wwith relatives at some place OUTSIDE of the shelter. This is the way shelter residents are encouraged to meet with family. Why she chose to meet them there is a mystery. Couldn't she have arranged to get together elsewhere? We'll not know from reading the contents of this thread--that much is sure.