Shelter Will Help Deflect Abuse Post Fall Adds Transitional Center For Abused Women

The woman left her abusive live-in boyfriend and found sanctuary with Post Falls’ emergency women’s shelter.

But without enough money to pay rent or adequately care for her children, she had no permanent place to go but back to the abuse.

The woman was lucky, said Susan Smith, a victim advocate with the Post Falls Police Department. She eventually made it to a transitional housing unit in Coeur d’Alene.

But the woman’s job was in Post Falls and her children had to move from Post Falls to Coeur d’Alene schools. Smith, who also is the director of the Officers and Advocates Sharing Intervention Services program in Post Falls, wants the city to offer transitional housing for cases like that one. It already offers an emergency shelter where women and children can go temporarily, but Smith says that’s not always enough.

“In a two- or three-day stay, you can’t save up enough money to move into another place,” she explained. “What we wanted was a place where they could save up some money and get a job and get on some housing lists.”

The Post Falls women’s shelter served 15 adults and 18 children last year, she said.

She recommended using the current women’s emergency shelter as a transitional house and setting up as emergency shelter another house that the city now rents out.

The City Council approved of Smith’s goals and Tuesday night said the OASIS program could use the houses as she suggested.

“I’m wholly in support of this. I think it would utilize the house (that the city now rents out) a lot better for the whole community,” Mayor Gus Johnson said.

The only problem is that OASIS will have to find a way to do about $10,000 of repairs needed for the house that will become the emergency shelter. The current tenants of the house have done some damage to it and are being evicted because of that, according to a City Council memo. The house needs carpeting, painting and a renovation to the bathroom, which people currently have to walk through to get upstairs. The other house needs no work.

The house that will become the emergency shelter should be in order sometime in September or October, Smith estimated. Once it’s ready, OASIS also could operate some of its other programs, such as support group meetings, out of that building, she said.

She emphasized that the OASIS program gives help to whoever needs it, even if they don’t live in Post Falls or Rathdrum.

“We’re pretty excited about having our own units because the waiting lists (to get into transitional housing) are long,” Smith said. “A lot of women go back to unsafe situations because they don’t have anywhere else to stay.”

TO HELP OUT The house that will become an emergency shelter for women who have been abused needs $10,000 in repairs, including carpeting, painting and a renovation to the bathroom. To make donations to the OASIS program, call 773-1080.