My Nonprofit Reviews

I am apparently an unusual survivor of domestic violence, for Hope House anyway, in that I am male. During the marriage, I would regularly flee my ex-wife's yelling by leaving the house for a few days. Against my better judgement, I always forgave her and returned. Eventually she filed a divorce petition in which she claimed I was the abusive one, and then she parentally kidnapped our children. The Guardian ad Litem appointed into our divorce at Mother's request suggested I engage hope house's guardian program as a place where Mother would bring the children so they could see me, which I agreed to do as otherwise they would not see me at all. Hope House Guardian program from the beginning has treated me like some kind of threat or dangerous criminal, and hope house's "court" and "civil legal" programs have been completely non-responsive to my requests for assistance, since I have exhausted my savings on lawyers, and am emotionally distressed to where I cannot hold a good-paying job trying in vain to fight Mother's frivolous, spiteful, and poorly formed allegations, which she somehow convinced the family court judge to go along with, even though in doing so the court ignored the court's own impartial experts and gave a judgement beyond the authority granted in RSMo Chapter 452.

Contrary to their own brochures on "what domestic violence is," Guardian Program turns Mother's unfounded fears into additional rules of conduct during visits at guardian program -- rules which must be followed under pain of losing the one time the children can see me. In conclusion, they may be doing a great job when it comes to couples who actually hit each other, but in a situation where the domestic violence consists of the woman yelling at the man (and at the children) and then abusing the court system to further her agenda of abusive control, they seem dumbfounded, and absolutely refuse to provide me the assistance their promotional material claims they provide to survivors, in particular the "attorneys who are well versed in the complex issues of domestic violence" who are supposed to be "available to represent domestic violence survivors in the civil legal system at no cost" which is listed as part of Program 2 at http://www.guidestar.org/profile/43-1265685 from where I clicked to get to this review form.