Unless for some strange reason that homeless shelter was different, here is my experience working with mothers in a shelter.
I was a teacher and worked with the children until they found stable housing. The shelter was in a beautiful new home in a nice neighborhood. The bedrooms were built for one family.
Because of the tremendous need, sometimes there were three families in that one bedroom. You could not hardly walk through the room because of the beds and dressers.
Picture families in major crisis. Children whose whole lives are disrupted. The chaos and drama even though staff worked on providing calm, safe counseling and opportunities.
Goals are made. Nonstop appts with therapists, job counselors, doctors, teachers, daycare providers housing advocates and often court for abusive bf's or spouses.
Can you even imagine the intense vibe in a shelter?
BTW, when people leave a shelter, they have nothing. Yes, you may look at RB and think, "Who cares?"
If you can, at your abused woman's shelter, there is always need for dressers, bookcases and most of all mattresses.
Where I lived, the women were given a voucher for a mattress from a local chain furniture store. Of course they have no transportation so hubby and I would go up there to get mattresses.
The free mattress is one from when they bring a new one and pick up the old discard.
I would look for ones with the least amount of stains. Then I would have hubby smell them.
I would tell the moms that this was the best we found.
Everyone was so grateful and said that they would cover them with plastic.
It was better than sleeping on a concrete floor of govt housing or on the filthy carpet of sec 8 housing.
The shelters in my city have no storage space. The abused woman's shelter has a guarded door and I am not sure how the average citizen would donate furniture. The need is so great.
RB is far more evil than most out there. The parents I met with did want better lives for their kids.
This will probably get deleted as off topic, but the women in the abused dhelter had lives that were so depressing. PG at 14 cuz sex abused. Looking for love so a couple more kids.
Have to work cuz of welfare sanctions, Taken advantage of by for profit schools. No way out of their impossible school debt. I can go on and on. I retired early cuz of the burnout.
I met so many women that I wanted to inject with the idea that they are worthy human beings deserving of love and happiness and opportunity.
