What is it like in a women and children's crisis refuge hostel?

Question

What is it like in a women and children's crisis refuge hostel?

Answer 1

Different shelters are different.  Some have rooms like a motel, others are dormitory style, lots of bunk beds or pallates on the floor in one room.   Things are generally pretty basic.  Breakfast and supper are included.  Privacy may be pretty limited.   Many offer shelter at night only so people need to be out looking for work or going to school in the day time.  There are some very nice ppl and some who have a lot of problems and are scarry.      Here are some examples.

This would be a fairly typical day at My Sister's Place. 6 women and their daughters share 2 bedrooms full of bunk and trundle beds.  Alarm clock goes off at 4:30 AM so everyone can have a turn in the bathroom and be ready for breakfast by 6.  Beds must be made and belongings put away before breakfast.  Breakfast would typically be cold cereal, juice and milk for the kids and coffee for the moms.  Everyone sits or stands around a table in the kitchen.  If anyone is supposed to take meds they have to get them from the shelter director because residents are not allowed to keep their own meds.  Kids get the school bus around 6:30.   Some moms leave by then to walk children to day care and go to work or go look for work.  Everyone even the mom working 2nd shift is supposed to be out by 9 AM but somethimes there are exceptions if a child especially a baby is ill.   People start to come back around 4 or 4:30.  Supper is often provided by a local resteraunt or the ladies may heat up something in the microwave.   Everyone has chores to do and children are expected to have homework done before supper.   There are no computers.  There is one TV in the living room so people must agree about what to watch.   Sometimes there are quarrels and tensions because that many strangers in one place having a hard time mean nerves are on edge but usually no bad aruguments because the ladies know that any fights mean being expelled and may mean that DFACS is notified that they are not keeping their children in a warm safe place.  Anyone drinking, using drugs, bringing a male on the property or failing to get a job or to follow other rules will also be expelled.   3 evenings a week there are classes of some sort that everyone must attend.   These are intended to help overcome the problems that brought them to the shelter.   MSP is considered one of the better shelters in the area because beds and chairs are comfortable and there is a TV and good food.   Most residents called the first director grandma and felt comfortable talking with her about most everything.  The next director had more of an us and them attitude and didn't chat with residents but mainly gave directions.

Across town is SA a larger shelter 21 women in the women's shelter.  20+ men in the men's wing.    Beds are tripple decker bunks.   Children may be there but only in the dorm for their gender which is hard on a 4 or 6 yr old boy whose mom is the only grown up he knows.   There is one bathroom for each gender.  Meals are cold sandwiches.   Doors open at 5.  Supper at 5:30 then to the dorms (no TV or living room or classes) lights out at 8:30 wake up at 4 everyone out by 8 with no exceptions.    

ACP accomodated indviiduals and families in a motel efficiecy type room.   Each had refrig and microwave. TV, table and chairs and bed,futon,orsofa sleeper and cribs as needed.   People lived pretty much independently as if in their own place so there was no out by time in the morning but children were expected to be in school and parents expected to work or make a real effort to look for work.  Each family keeps up their own room does their own laundry at on site laundromat.   There is a yard for after school play.  This is a rural setting but in easy walk of stores and places to work.  School bus stops out front.  It is in a complex where there are regular rented apartments so schoolmates, potential employers etc.  don't know the family is in a shelter unless they are told.  Volunteers help each family make and encourage them to carry out a plan to be independent in 30-90 days and help them connect with services in the community.   One emphasis that made ACP different was the emphasis on keeping families together and each family having their own space.   Food is furnished unless family has food stamps and each family does their own cooking.  There are basic rules,no drugs, no drinking no creating disturbance but the emphasis is for the family to maintain independence.

Answer 2

I stayed in one when I was about 12 years old with my mother and brother.

It is a very awkward situation, the people there make you feel that it is their duty to protect you, and even looking back now perhaps they make you more nervous then you should be in an unintentional way.  You see a lot of people in crisis, a lot of people crying, etc.

In all, it's not so bad, the rooms are like a hotel and everyone tries to go out of their way to treat you nicely.

I imagine everyones different, I came from a small town in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.