We offered them a place to stay at a group home that is safe from abusive spouses. Before they move into one of the single family homes they must get a job. If they didn't want to do that then we were happy to help them apply for section 8 housing. This was a FAMILY shelter, no singles are eligible.
Thanks for the factual reply. Just one more thing...you write, "This was a FAMILY shelter, no singles are eligible." Does that mean the recipients needed to be a man and woman who were both present, who were married to each other, and who had children?
Was a widow with children eligible? An abandoned wife with children? A mother whose husband was in prison?
I'm interested because I've done some assistance of poor women myself. There's always someone who falls through the cracks. Nobody wants to bend their rules, and yet sometimes there's a rule of six weeks maximum stay at a shelter and six months on the waiting list for housing. Or the welfare agency needs to try to offset their expenditures by seeking to obtain support from the homicidal stalker who is only too happy to hear from them where his victim is.
The best helping hand, I have found, is one loving Christian's hand extended to one in distress. There is only one rule in such an encounter. And only One in authority to account to.
That's not to say organizations do no good, of course they do a great deal of good. And by far, more than the rule-bound governments at any level.