My Nonprofit Reviews

Let's start with my first night. I called to see if a bed was available and was told i would have to come see for myself. I decide to take a bus, and my adventure begins. The driver went past my stop so I ended up walking over a mile, with a child, in a very sketchy neighborhood. Upon arriving I am slightly unnerved to discover that the gate and front door are open, no security guard in sight, and no real safety measures. Whatever. At Least i didn't get raped, robbed, or murdered on the way. (I'm still looking on the bright side at this point).  After only 15 min of waiting, a nice lady comes and takes me to intake. This part is relatively painless and not too lengthy. I am pleased to discover that my child and i will be in a bunk bed in a semi private area with 1 other mom & daughter. I arrived well after lights out, which is 8pm, so i make our beds in the dark. I get settled in and go to sleep. Then surprise! 6am the lights go on. Ugh I'm not a morning person. I eventually get moving cause if you don't..you will get written up. Also if you don't get downstairs in time, you will miss breakfast. Yum unsweetened oatmeal. I make sure i pack up anything and everything i might need for the day cause you get kicked off your floor at 7:30am and can't come back till 3:45. So, what to do for the day? Well you can leave if you have a car, awesome friend to rescue you, or you have a bus pass and stuff to do. Don't count on this place to freely handout bus passes or you will be sorely disappointed. Sometimes i have to stay here and the only options are to sit outside in the blazing heat (getting eaten alive by flies), sit inside the day room (getting eaten alive by flies) and risk a headache from all the noise, or go  "panhandle." It doesn't always mean what you think. Basically no matter where you hang out, you will be forced to listen to 99% of the women talking crap about the others while they smoke one cigarette after another. They don't discuss ANYTHING else. So you've made it through the day and 3:45 has arrived. Wanna go upstairs and relax? Nope. You can't possibly relax with all the screaming kids, rap music, and moms beating their kids. Now it's time to shower. Wear your shower shoes cause each and every bodily fluid (solids too!) are pooling on the floors cause some drains are stopped up. Yuck! I try not to touch the shower curtains that have a layer or two of mold on them. Ok now I'm clean (sort of). Time to go to bed and rest up for the next day. I am now physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. So a little about how this place is helping me. Oops haha i just wet myself from laughing over that comment. After many weeks of being here, i still haven't seen a case mngr. I have gotten zero counseling, zero help with housing, zero legal advise for family court issues, zero anything. I just want to move forward and put my life back together but i am told i need to learn how to be patient. At the risk of hurting everyone here including myself and my child, I urge people not to donate. We are fed questionable food (uncooked, tasteless, possibly left in the sun, nibbled on by rats and roaches, hey remember those flies I mentioned)), very few families get any clothing, they run out of bus passes, the plumbing in the bathrooms is certainly not up to code. Rarely will you find toilet paper in every stall, soap for washing hands, or towels for drying them. We have maggots or some weird worms swimming in a stopped up sink in a bathroom used by children. The entire place is dirty and disgusting. The beds have bed bugs. All of this is not just my opinion, it's a sad fact. Ask any woman here and they will tell you the same thing. Not only that, they will add some more shocking complaints. All the wonderful things that are listed on the shade tree website that are supposed to help us, just don't exist. Oh and when they have people come here for a fund raising event, we have to do "bed bug protocol" which is putting all of our stuff in garbage bags so our dorms look clean. This place should be evacuated then burned to the ground. God help us all.