Help Needed With Shelter For Abused Women
Faded walls, tired furniture, cheap carpeting, cracked linoleum - the old house says “crisis shelter” with every creak of its floor.
It breaks Cricket Green’s heart.
She peers into a cramped bedroom where curtains droop from a broken rod.
“An abused woman needs a bright environment, a place that says, ‘This is what home should be like,’ something inviting and cheery,” she says.
Cricket knows. She ran from her husband years ago after, she said, he had held a gun to her head and molested their children. She was so desperate for a new life that she barely noticed the depressing crisis world that absorbed her.
But she’s sure that world scares many women right back into the arms that hurt them.
Cricket tries to compensate for the bare light bulbs and missing cupboard doors with her unlimited capacity to listen and with a nurturing staff. Managing the shelter for the past six years has helped her heal. She wants to share her strength.
But the house seems to thwart her efforts.
“It’s hard to have any privacy here,” Cricket says. “There’s no play area, day-care facilities. We’ve had kids sleep in closets to keep families together.”
The non-profit Women’s Center opened the shelter 13 years ago to give battered women a place to go. Most bolt from home, kids in tow, with little money or belongings.
Their spouses usually pursue them. So the Women’s Center keeps the shelter’s location a secret.
Money was tight in 1983 and has stayed tight. Battered women elicit little sympathy, understanding or donations from people in healthy relationships. Rent for the old house started low, but it has crept up over the years and hasn’t included much maintenance.
Some of the money intended for programs that teach women self-sufficiency and boost their self-worth went for repairs instead.
Cricket worries about the women who come to her with black eyes, broken bones and terrified children. They need immediate assurance that leaving their violent homes was the right decision.
But they start their odyssey in a run-down shelter that reinforces their doubts.
Women’s Center officials don’t know whether to rent, buy or build a new shelter. They need ideas on locations and property and money to get the job done. If you can help, call Holladay Sanderson at 664-9303.
Sad September
Lee Pugsley started Coeur d’Alene High School last month as a freshman right after he’d reaped an armload of awards for his 4-H projects at the North Idaho Fair. He’s an upbeat kid who wears thick glasses, loves to perform on stage and is a whiz with computers.
His mother, Tanya, was Lee’s loudest cheerleader. She and Lee were just adapting to high school life when Tanya was killed in a car crash Sept. 10 on her way home from work at the Panhandle Health District’s Kellogg office.
Tanya’s mother and sister will raise Lee now, but they’ll need some help. Tanya’s friends at the health district have started a fund at U.S. Bank to help with the cost of a college education for Lee. The Lee Pugsley account number is 3600000-610 and deposits can be made at any branch.
All-nighters
Upperclassmen kidnapped my daughter late at night last week for a high school swim team hazing. The poor swimmers were blindfolded, led away in pajamas, made to buy birth-control items and taken to school the next day with painted faces and sleeping-bag hair.
Crazy, but the “hazees” couldn’t seem to get enough. How great to feel accepted. …
What kind of initiations did you suffer through in school? Unlock those memories for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or send e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo