Shelter

Victims who experience domestic or sexual violence face a grave choice: to stay in the home despite abuse, or to leave and become homeless.  This is a daunting choice for any victim.  Options seeks to alleviate the struggles associated with leaving an abusive partner by providing victims with a safe place to live.  Options will provide clients emergency shelter, which is marked by several unique characteristics: communal living, safety-oriented expectations, and support of goals that maximize a client’s likelihood of building an independent and violence-free life for her family.  Victims that suffer domestic and sexual violence experience deep trauma at the hands of a trusted family member.  They require and deserve unwavering support from their advocates and from their community.  This trauma leaves them weak, vulnerable and broken.  Options seeks to create a web of support that will enable a family to enter our doors broken, and emerge strong.

Jim’s House accepts self referrals by appointment or walk-in, and referrals from hospitals, law enforcement, and the court system.

Often a dramatic escalation of abuse or a particularly gruesome act of violence forces a victim to flee the home.  Many victims feel that they are capable of enduring abuse, and do so for years, until their abuser attacks their children.  Violence that changes its focus from a partner to the child is often a strong catalyst for the family to flee.  Even other victims are brought to Options by police transport after a criminally violent attack, or after being hospitalized due to domestic or sexual violence.  If a victim is hospitalized for domestic or sexual violence in Burke County, an employee of Options will accompany the victim during her hospitalization to provide emotional support and empowerment through knowledge of her rights and options.

Clients arrive at Jim’s House in crisis.  Parents and children are often very emotional and scared.  Many clients come to Jim’s House via police transport, a frightening experience in itself, and having just experienced a violent traumatic event.  The intake process is designed to make clients feel comfortable talking about the abuse and feel comfortable in their temporary new home.  Clients are invited to rest and decompress as soon as they arrive because few are ready to have an intensely emotional conversation about their abuse immediately. The parents are offered a smoke break and a cup of tea, while children are given a stuffed animal and are shown the play areas.  During the actual intake interview, parents are asked to describe their abuser and the abuse to the extent they feel comfortable.  They are also asked to set goals for to share with another family or individual.  All other areas are shared, including the kitchen, dining room, living room, play room, smoking deck, and back yard.  Communal living presents clients with both logistical challenges and unique opportunities to build relationships.

A concern of communal living that is particular to domestic violence shelters is to maintain the maximum level of physical and emotional safety for all clients at all times.  When they arrive at Jim’s House, clients are in crisis because they are in serious physical danger.  Clients would not need emergency shelter if their physical safety were not in jeopardy.  Housing a number of clients whose physical safety is endangered by a violent abuser multiplies the potential for violent individuals to trespass on our property in pursuit of their victims.  Safety expectations on clients seek to diminish the potential for violence.  Clients are expected to have no contact with abusers, are never to invite abusers on our property, are to inform staff if they are having someone pick them up at the shelter, and are to abide by strict confidentiality rules regarding other clients. 

Options enhances security through safety audits of our property by law enforcement, and regular investment in security upgrades.

While staying in Jim’s Shelter, clients are expected to work towards establishing a violence-free and independent life for their families.  This is a difficult, but rewarding, process that Options’ staff supports as much as possible.  Options staff supports clients as they work to achieve the goals they set for themselves during the intake interview.  Such goals include providing their children with a violence-free home, severing contact with the abuser, establishing safe contact between children and their fathers, or financial independence.  Steps that clients take to achieve these goals are often filing a DVPO, attending Support Group, ensuring Medicaid or health insurance for their children, seeking out counseling for their children, enrolling their children in day-care or school, or looking for a job or affordable housing.  Clients meet with the shelter manager once every three days to evaluate their progress towards achieving their goals, and to reassess the appropriateness of their plans.

Any non-offending family member is eligible to receive Options’ crisis services and emergency shelter.  Men who are victims of domestic or sexual violence are also eligible to receive Options’ crisis services and emergency shelter.