My Nonprofit Reviews

I went to the Rescue Mission of El Paso out of extreme desperation a few years ago. I was in an abusive situation and I had nowhere to go. I had an old van and the clothes on my back and nothing else. I called the Rescue Mission at 1 in the morning asking if they would take me in. I had nowhere else to go and no money. They said to come. The Mission is in a bad neighborhood along the border and surrounded by factories. I got there about 2 AM. I was admitted and given a thin blanket and a roll of toilet paper which I was told to guard because it was all I would get. I was placed in a crowded room with many metal bunk beds all together where about 20 women were sleeping. I was menstruating and having to ration the toilet paper was not a good thing. I was hungry, sick, tired and desperate to the point that I was suicidal. I was in the bed by about 2:30, but the staff kept walking by and communicating on the PA system. Not long after laying down, the woman in the bunk next to me got up and sprayed me full in the face with RAID bug spray and then sprayed her mattress. I just could not believe it. I got up and went to the bathroom to wash my face and a woman came in laughing maniacally, I can only guess that she was mentally handicapped. I went back and lay down on the hard and dirty mattress and tossed and turned until 6AM and then I got up. I got no sleep at all in the night due to the intercom being used every few minutes. I waited around the common area for about an hour to hear about breakfast. They let people go in to the dining room by priority and single women were low on the list. After about another hour of waiting they said I could go in. I was expecting something edible... but the bags of smushed stale bread was not something even a dog would eat. I was in tears because I truly needed help. Some of the women who had been in the shared room were now lounging about with their boyfriends and smoking cigarettes. I was by now starving and exhausted and worst yet, in the night I had started feeling itchy... first on my scalp, then on my arms and other skin and then on my genitals. With no option except to live in my van, I went home to my abusive husband. I took a bath and then I slept. I was given no sanctuary at the Rescue Mission of El Paso. There was no rest and no good food and bad, vulgar people. It is not a place for anyone normal or civilized. And worst yet, to this day I and still having problems with parasites which I can only guess is scabies / lice. If I do not bathe daily I am horribly itchy, and this started the night I tried to spend with a crowd of women on dirty beds. Rescue Mission of El Paso: if you are going to advertise yourself as a safe and loving place then make it so. As it is, I think it is a fraudulent charity and definitely not a safe place for an average woman to stay.