Mother House opening new emergency shelter for women, transgender and nonbinary people
By ANNA HAYNES | For the Daily Camera
PUBLISHED: July 9, 2020 at 7:03 p.m. | UPDATED: July 9, 2020 at 7:03 p.m.
Boulder-based nonprofit Mother House is opening The Lodge — a new emergency overnight shelter catering to women, transgender people and nonbinary people — in September.
Mother House has been providing shelter and services for mothers in crisis since 1982 and has been working to make The Lodge a reality since January. The shelter is opening with the support of a $25,000 grant from Community Foundation Boulder County and donated blankets, mats and cots from community partners.
According to a news release, The Lodge is opening in response to an “increase in housing insecurity, evictions and domestic violence incidents during (COVID-19).”
“A lot of relationships have become very volatile where before they might have been at least decent,” Mother House Program Director Shanan Collins said. “I think there are more transgender and nonbinary (people) and women who need to flee those situations.”
Only pregnant women and mothers with babies are eligible to stay at Mother House.
“The impetus for (The Lodge) is the number of people we have get in touch with us at Mother House who we have to turn away,” Mother House Executive Director Lisa Sweeney-Miran said. “The more we talked about it the more we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fantastic if instead of just having to say no we could have another place where we could serve the folks that we can’t serve currently in a residential program and offer sheltering and safety?’”
Mother House is a dedicated shelter with bedrooms that can hold up to seven adults and 10 children at a time and works with each resident for two to 10 months until they can obtain permanent housing. The Lodge is an overnight shelter that will utilize three to four community spaces on a rotating schedule and is expected to serve 20 to 40 clients per night. The Lodge will have a single dorm with socially distanced cots and mats.
While the nonprofit recommends its residential program, the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence and the Emergency Family Assistance Association for the most ideal family sheltering, there is a separate area in The Lodge for families and the shelter’s staff has been trained on additional procedures implemented when families are residing in the shelter.
Mother House will enlist the services of OUT Boulder County to train staff in interacting with transgender and nonbinary residents.
“Because of discrimination that occurs on personal and structural levels, trans people are much more likely to experience lower socioeconomic status, poor health indicators and a lack of access to services,” OUT Boulder County Education & Program Manager Michal Duffy said. “Service providers need to be aware of the challenges trans people face on a daily basis so that they can offer vital services with cultural competence.”
Collins said that it’s important for everyone, not just service providers, to be educated on marginalized populations such as transgender and nonbinary people.
“Trying to train staff, even if we weren’t going to allow that population into the shelter, I think it would be important to know.”
Duffy, who uses gender neutral pronouns, added it is important for service providers to “be ready to defend their trans clients against attacks and insults from others.”
“Organizations need to be able to communicate their values in regards to LGBTQ inclusion and stand strongly by those affirmations even when they are challenged by closed-minded individuals and discriminatory institutions,” they said.
The Lodge will provide a bilingual navigator to assist clients with developing a plan to achieve housing or other long-term access goals such as SNAP, Medicaid, employment and education.
“One thing we do at Mother House Residential Shelter and that we hope to bring into the Lodge is take the time to focus on each person as an individual to understand what their real needs and barriers and challenges are that are different and unique from those of other folks and then work to meet those challenges,” Sweeney-Miran said.
Mother House receives referrals for potential clients through community partners, direct outreach and word of mouth. The location of the shelter is not secret; Mother House refers those who need to be in a privately located facility to the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence.
It costs $160,000 annually to keep The Lodge open year-round. Mother House is securing further funding to continue running The Lodge in 2021. Those interested in donating to The Lodge can do so at mother-house.org/lodge.