Posted on 08/25/2008 5:06:56 AM PDT by FreeManDC
Mary Runge of Palm Bay, Fla. found herself without a job and her savings depleted. So last month the single mom went knocking on the doors of local charities for help. The 47-year-old mother of three was urged to tell the girl at the local abuse hotline: "tell them we have been abused, and we will receive all we need."
But Runge had never been a victim of abuse.
It used to be that in order to get into an abuse shelter, you had to have visible signs of harm — even if the injuries were fake. Columnist Denise Noe recounts her experience with a couple who had been evicted from their apartment. The wife reasoned, "My husband could black my eye so me and the kid could go to a battered woman's shelter."
But nowadays, abuse shelters dispense with the formalities — any good sob story will do. You see, intake workers are told to "always believe the victim."
Anthony Westbury, president of SafeSpace in Stuart, Fla., explains his shelter's open-door policy this way: "you don't put up any more barriers for victims wanting to enter the shelter." In Enid, Okla. the YWCA Emergency Shelter actually advertises on its website, "we do NOT require proof of abuse."
"In all the time that I volunteered there, I saw one woman who showed signs of physical abuse," a former shelter worker revealed. The residents "were just gaming the system....All they had to do was make up some tale about some man abusing them — no proof needed — and they could stay up to 2 months at the shelter."
So once inside, how do these women milk the system?
The basic shelter package includes free room, board, and baby-sitting. And chauffeur-driven transport in the shelter van. Some shelters offer free pet care. In Naples, Fla. the Shelter for Abused Women and Children features a beauty salon where residents "can be pampered in a safe and convenient location."
Taxpayer-funded legal help is also available for just about any problem. If you need to get rid of a pesky husband, Bethany House in Falls Church, Va. can help. A former shelter volunteer describes the shelter as a "free hostel for women with emotional problems if they are willing to hate their husbands enough and are willing to take out protective orders against their husbands."
Daily shelter routines can be described as loosey-goosey. The women come and go as they please. Asked what the Buffalo Women Calf Society does to help women become self-sufficient, Melinda Zephier, a staffer at the South Dakota shelter, answered limply, "We don't push them."
Romantic liaisons thrive. One former shelter director revealed, "After hours, some of these women would sneak men into their rooms — the same men who had supposedly abused them." Other women take up with their female co-residents.
At Another Way in Lake City, Fla., you can toke a little weed and not worry about the consequences. "I, on numerous occasions reported illegal drug use that I had witnessed take place on Shelter property and often my complaints were ignored," a former employee revealed.
Once the "abused" woman is released from the shelter, she moves to the front of the line for welfare benefits, HUD housing programs, and almost everything else. If she is an illegal immigrant, a work permit is almost a sure bet.
There's more to the shelter shake-and-bake routine.
Because once word gets out that reaching the status of an "abused woman" is a free ticket to Easy Street, everyone wants to get a piece of the action. That means many must be turned away, including those women and men who are true victims of abuse.
All this comes as good news to the domestic violence industry. That's because telling potential donors and lawmakers about all the women and children who were refused help is one of the best cough-up-your-money arguments they have.
For example, the National Network to End Domestic Violence claims in its recent Domestic Violence Counts report that nationwide there were "2,923 unmet requests for emergency shelter." And the Colorado Domestic Abuse Assistance Program reports, "In 2006, 5,886 individuals were turned away from shelters in Colorado due to a lack of capacity."
Don't ask me to explain how there were 5,886 persons turned away in Colorado and only 2,923 unmet requests nationwide.
Fortunately, there are still a few good women left, ladies who refuse to sell their souls to a free-wheeling shelter system. Mary Runge is one such woman.
"I do not want to live on this twisted, sick system. I don't want them in my life...I don't want to play the game and lie. I only need help," Runge plaintively told me.
"All women are not feminist," she announces proudly.
Democrats were bragging that Joe Biden sponsored the Violence Against Women act. Abuse charges are a good way to get full custody and child support, the father gets supervised visitation that he pays for, and her legal fees. One figure that will never be quoted by the democrats/liberals, abuse by boyfriends vs husbands, especially of kids. The effect of the destruction of the family helped liberals take control of the families, with men’s money.
I find it disturbing that people who are trying to deal with a real and serious problem are once again taken advantage of by those who know how to “work the system.”
There are several groups who are being victimized and abused here. First is the group who have already been victimized by an abusive spouse who are now unable to get shelter because the space is occupied by a freeloader.
Second is the people who in good faith give their time and money to make this opportunity available. Their time and money is being stolen from them.
The third group that is being hurt is the group of honest and decent people in society who are once again jaded by the realization that the users of this world abuse the honesty and generosity of others.
News like this makes those who are charitable and compassionate think twice before spending their money or time on a charitable project.
This is the Government's model for guaranteeing it's future. It is outrageous and 'stupid are we' for allowing it. There is no 'moral ethic' in Liberalism; and why, where genuine 'Leftism' is the underlying MO; corruption 'natually' follows; and the corrupted as well.
. . .it is the Government Enhancement model. . .'if you build a program; they will come'.
This could be a story about every government give-a-way program in existance. Socialism creates a whole society of people who learn how to play the system. We see it all the time in the food pantry and in the senior citizen centers. I know several families who are in real need, yet refuse to take “charity”. What a far cry America has come from the self-sufficient proud people who built her from the ground up. It’s embarrassing.
Yet another reason to starve the beast of unlimited government and step up border enforcement.
Fraud, waste and abuse in a tax-payer supported, government-sanctioned program?
Unheard of! *Rolleyes*
(Good article, though.)
“Men’s money?” Therein lies part of the problem. The men play control games with the marital funds...once you are married fellas its marital income.......so both men and women......be careful who you marry....don’t make decisions because of or with your anatomy. Go for honesty, character, fidelity, hard work, good parent material, etc. Look ouot for partners with goofball potential inlaws who will ruin your lives..........there are a ton of pitfalls.
My almost-ex-DIL tried this. The psych eval resulted in my son getting primary placement. Once in a great while, the system works.
You are so right. Trust has eroded to zero. Recent example: Our church sits near a busy highway. Not long ago, a man walked in on our Wed. night Bible Study group. He sat down and began telling this taLL tale about how his car broke down, but he was able to get it fixed. The repair, he said, took all the money he had and now he needed money to get back to S.C. We were a group of females only, and I've been around the block a time or two. I immediately saw it as a scam, preying on the generosity of Christians, and told him we didn't have any money for such things because the Ministerial Assoc. handled emergencies from a general fund. But he kept sitting there, even after I told him that he could get a voucher at the First Baptist Church for gas. He didn't want to drive back to town. I asked one of the ladies to go call the Baptist Church to see if they were open (meaning go call somebody in case we need help). After a pretty long period, one of the ladies gave him a $20 and he left. She was "sure" that the poor man was in dire need. Maybe I would have been fooled too, but I had been the victim of that scam about three times already. Churches are targets for the scammers.
Anyway, after that we have been locking the door after everyone gets to Bible Study. Late comers have to knock on the back door to be let in. Think about the bind such situations cause for a Christian.
We are taught to be "good Samaritans". We are told to love our neighbor as ourselves. So we are faced with the choice of being a Christian or being a victim of fraud. At first I chose being a Christian and leaving the thief in the hands of God, but I got tired of contributing to the sins of the thief. We have had some conversations about this dilemma. Do we let ourselves be victims, or do we stick to Christian values? Anybody have an opinion on that?
Our church has the same policy of giving gas cards and the staff is instructed to lock the doors if they are alone and people have to ring the bell. We lock the children’s wing on Sundays......and people have to check their children in and out. We do not give cash, we give numbers to community help places. God calls on us to be helpful, not to be victims. One of you ladies could have been seriously hurt.
That story is all the reason needed to keep guns in church.
Even the Disciples carried swords.
This is hardly new. It’s been going on for over 20 years. A whole infrastructure exists which makes its living off of “abuse”. “Abuse” is the feminist equivalent of “racism”
RE ““Men’s money?” Therein lies part of the problem. The men play control games with the marital funds “
I agree that the marital assets are mutual property. I was thinking about tax money and women, especially unmarried moms voting for democrats/tax increases. Another issue is a unmarried couples where the Mom sues the father for custody and child support and the judge rules the dad pays the woman’s legals fees.
In the married case the woman has an equal right to use the money for legal or whatever. That’s marriage! I do have two friends with 3 and 2 kids whose wives took the kids and left the state, country and got child support and alimony. In the other state case she claimed abuse, in the other country case she just left the country with the kids. The fathers in these two cases loved the kids and wanted to keep the families together, and didnt fight it, and found out their lives were ruined and they would never be with their kids again , and their paychecks went to wives for child support.
Don't know about your area but our city has a law that lets the property owner sign an agreement with the police department and then post a sign that says trespassers will be arrested without any further permission from the owners. Most scam guys see this and know that church has been down the path and is wise to their BS. It's also nice because then an officer can come on the property at will, not just when a complaint is filed.
The overwhelming majority of these scam artists are perfectly safe to deal with. A giant pain in the patootie, but not a danger to anyone at the location. The problem is that enough of them are a very real danger that you can't have a rule of thumb for dealing with them other than treat them all with much caution. There is all sorts of help out there for the legitimate person down on their luck. The ones who really need it will take it and be gracious. The guy like this one you dealt with is a scammer, pure and simple.
What a joke. Some of these quotes were lifted DIRECTLY off an FR post a month ago. So let me get this straight...
Renew America (Alan Keyes) has an article complaing about how some women’s shelters don’t ask any questions and just take the word of some of their applicants...then write an article where they don’t ask any questions and just take the word of some anonymous posters when quoting them.
Renew America is a joke, Alan Keyes is a joke and this writer is a joke. This is why many parts of the conservative movement cannot ever get off the ground...they have the standards and integrity of the same people they chastise.
You may already know this, about "single-parent-headed households" -- I wrote extensively about this phenomena in the early 90s: But the same "shell-game" goes on in re Welfare vis a vis "single-mother households". The "single-mother" makes much more money off the system if she reports there is no dad, or no daddy around. However, the reality does not match this -- usually there is a daddy, and he knows his girlfriend and their child(ren) are financially better off when they do things "this way".
Ultimately, of course, it sets of generational dependences, and makes despair and deception a "way of life".
How did I come by so much of the knowledge I have re men (of any ethnicity); and the cycle of welfare?
In 1982 or 1983, a friend handed me a huge pile of papers to read: It was a gentleman's Master Thesis. He entitled it Tally's Corner. Tally's Corner is in DC. It is now in bookform.
Unfortunately, through the years since my reading of it, I've seen that some politicians, educators, lobbyists, bureacratics have taken the exactly WRONG approach to resolving this matter of specifically, black males and the inner city plight.
Tally's Corner is what gave me the courage to fight as I did to improve the well being of males, and against an unholy union between racialists and feminists.
As with the women in this thread's article, Yes, I also know about the female side of the bureacratic leviathan.
In the early 90s, a white female I had a work acquaintance with got laid off. She showed up at the Oakland, CA unemployment office; and was verbatim told to "get in the back of the line." Time after time. Her Merchant Marine boyfriend did his best to be around to help she and her son. In fact, I had them both (mother & son) live in my home with my family for a duration, to help them out. She got a bitty job, and as ruggedly independent as my acquaintance was, she was determined to be beholden to no one. She got laid off. We were all worried; I offered my home again. Next thing I knew, she told me she and MM boyfriend had come up with a plan. They'd gotten drunk (so she wouldn't feel the pain); and he bounced her a good one, and went off on a ship. She went to a shelter; not only was she taken care of, and her son... but she got vocational training, and basically an assured job where a company might feel timid about laying her off.
Sure, she felt shame at having to do things this way, and I certainly gave her no grief. She knew the story of her "abuse" would be utilized in feminist statistics showing how "eevil" males. And that bothered her no end; and she worried constantly over how her son would handle this. She basically prostituted herself to an ideologically based game, in order to provide for her son. She was no man-hater.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.