Pretty Bird Woman House Crippled By Lack Of House

This is a repost of a diary from both Street Prophets and Daily Kos. Betsy reports that we earned $1035 today... not too bad!!


I don’t know how to express to you the importance of a shelter like Pretty Bird Woman House, or to convince you it is worthy of a donation of your money or time. So I am going to try taking you behind the doors of a women's shelter so you can see what these shelters can do, first for the woman who is a victim, then for her children. Beyond that the shelter will impact local and regional police, the legal system and the government in ways that compel those institutions to change, become more responsive.

But really that’s still a sadly incomplete picture of what women’s shelters do. It’s too much for one diary, so consider this the first in a series of diaries on this topic.

But for this diary right now... let’s see how a women’s shelter operates from the inside. And in case you can't wait, you can donate via the link at the top right on this page.

Diariest Note: I worked at a domestic violence shelter in the Denver metropolitan area for three years in the 1990's. I worked primarily as a legal advocate helping women obtain restraining orders. I also worked part time as a relief counselor in the actual shelter, doing intakes, discharges, supervising the facility. Events in this diary come from my experiences there. All names are fictional.

From Crisis Call to Intake: How the Shelter Works
Usually it all begins with a call on our crisis line. We have to be careful answering calls. Boyfriends, husbands and rapists try to find the woman they victimized or the children she fled with by calling shelters and asking for her. We never reveal that anyone’s presence in the shelter unless legally coerced into doing so.

The phone rings and upon answering I rapidly move into crisis mode; I can hear her crying. My first question: are you safe? She replies I think so. I ask is he around? She says he stormed out after warning her not to call anyone or go anywhere.

Her temporary safety established I introduce myself: My name is Andy, what’s yours?

Mary, she whispers.

What happened? I ask.

He woke up and we were out of beer, she explains. He accused me of drinking it, but I didn’t, he did before he went to bed, he had all of it. He was yelling and calling me names and then he picked up one of the empty bottles and started hitting me with it.

Are you cut?

No, the bottle didn’t break.

Mary, we have to get you out of there.

Silence. Then I can hear her start to cry softly. Yes. I know.

We rapidly establish that she has two children, a ten year old who was in school and a three year old girl who just watched her father beat her mother with an empty beer bottle. I tell her not to worry about grabbing things, just get the girl and get the hell out before he returns.

Mary has no car, so she will take buses across the Denver metroplex to the Kwik Stop that is about a half mile from the shelter. We’ll pick her up there – that way we never give out the shelter address. The woman on the phone might be the sister of rapist who wants to track down his victim before she can testify against him; it’s happened before.

What about Mary’s son who is in school? Mary decides to pick him up on the way.

I rarely pick clients up from the Kwik Stop. I am male and that makes some women uncomfortable. Even more important, if their batterer/stalker saw his wife/girlfriend/victim get into a car with a strange man that would likely dramatically escalate danger to the woman. I am the only one available to pick up Mary at the moment and I know her on sight. She is the only woman holding a black trash bag filled with personal belongings. Her arm has bruises forming where her husband had grabbed her. The daughter clings to her leg, eyes wide and unblinking. The ten year old just stares at the ground.

We get to the shelter and I ring the doorbell. Inside, Sherie checks the monitor before buzzing us in. I suggest that the kids eat a snack and watch TV while we get her checked in. Mary’s shoulders sag when we pass through the doorway and the exhaustion floods her face.

It’s not a meal time, but Roberta, a retiree who volunteers as a cook, goes to the basement walk in refrigerator to get them a snack. We also have a well stocked pantry for the kids to raid.

The little girl eats nothing, the boy eats everything offered.

In the meantime Mary gets to go through the intake process, complete with searching her and her belongings. For obvious reasons, I am not a part of this process. Sad, isn’t it? Mary’s on the run for her life and the people who are offering her shelter want to through the trash bag that holds all of her material possessions. But we have to because occasionally we find vodka, crack pipe or a gun or something similar. In those cases we have to balance the safety of the other women and children in the shelter against the needs of the woman right in front of us.

If we do not accept her the best we can do for her is a hotel voucher if the county has them and is willing to offer her one. Maybe, maybe we’d be able to get her into the county hospital or a rehab center. We always put them in touch with Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous but our recovery aid ends there – we don’t have infinite resources.

Our shelter has six rooms upstairs, each with two bunk beds, so each room would sleep four adults. Downstairs we had one room that had a double bed. Theoretically we could house 26 women. But that’s fantasy because it does not include children and most women have children in tow. Twelve women, each with two to three kids, would fill us to bursting. Mary gets an upstairs room for herself and her family. With a ten year old boy in the room we can’t put another woman in there.

So, we have Mary safe in shelter. Let’s let Mary sort through the donated goods for deodorant, maxi-pads, diapers, toothbrush and toothpaste – all those essentials we take for granted that she did not have time to grab as she fled for her life – and see if we can’t get a grasp of why Pretty Woman Bird House faces a much more difficult task than our urban shelter does.

Pretty Bird Woman House: The Challenges and Obstacles
How would this same scenario work for [Pretty Bird Woman House http://prettybirdwomanhouse.blogspot.com/]? First of all, the call goes to a small office the tribal government is letting them borrow. Pretty Bird Woman House has to borrow the space due to the fact that their previous house was repeatedly broken into – with thieves smashing their way in from the outside, through the holes they created in the walls – before someone set fire to it. So if Mary were to call, they would have no shelter to offer her, no food to give her, no clothing, deodorant or whatever sundry toiletries she needs.

If they determined Mary had to go in shelter, Pretty Bird Woman House staffers would have to start calling around to neighboring shelters, located hours distant. If they get lucky, one of those shelters has space for a woman and two children. At that point Pretty Bird Woman House then loses one staffer for up to five hours as that staffer drives Mary and her children to the closest shelter with space and back. During that time that staffer cannot answer crisis calls, cannot accompany a woman to court, cannot try to find a child custody attorney for a woman seeking divorce.

Pretty Bird Woman House manages to work miracles despite this massive problem. They answer crisis calls, they do court appearances – but they cannot do this forever. Right now they essentially exist because the women who staff PBWH are just too damn tough to admit defeat.

The Differences

What You Can Do
We can help. Pretty Bird Woman House staffers have located a house right by a police station that they want to purchase. Being near the police station will help guarantee the safety of their clients. They need to raise $70,000 by January 31st in order to do this. But fundraising is off to a terribly slow start… we have less than $3,000. They need earnest money NOW before the house sells. Please help with this effort.

You can donate via the link at the top right of the page. Remember, Pretty Bird Woman House is a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization.

Money is not all that is needed. If you have clothing, toiletries or other goods (or checks if you don't donate online) donations you can send them via USPS to:
Pretty Bird Woman House
P.O. Box 596
McLaughlin, SD 57642

If you use FedEx, UPS or DHL ship to:
Pretty Bird Woman House
302 Sale Barn Rd.
McLaughlin SD 57642

If you have ideas for helping, please join the Friends of Pretty Bird Woman House Yahoo Group

Finally, if you are willing to blog on this or help spread the word about this campaign, please do so… our members and writers are not part of every blog. Feel free to reach out beyond the progressive blogosphere for this.

Anything you do for this effort is appreciated. You are helping make the Bird in Pretty Bird Woman House into a Phoenix – literally rising from the flames. Please take a second to tell us in comments what you did so we may thank you – and maybe your comments will inspire someone else to give as well.

Thank you very much.

Links
Friends of Pretty Bird Woman House Yahoo Group
Another Pretty Bird Woman House Blog
Amnesty International Report-Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA