KWRU Demands Emergency Safe Shelter

Dozens of KWRU members today protested in front of the offices of the Office of Emergency Social Services (OESS) in Philadelphia demanding emergency safe shelter for seven women who are currently fleeing domestic violence, and their children.

In Philadelphia, there are only 50 beds in anonymous battered women's shelters, and so women trying to escape violence are placed in public, unprotected shelters, putting them, their children and all of the shelter residents and staff at risk of assault by abusive partners. In addition, shelters frequently insist on families being divided, and in particular women with several children are denied shelter for themselves and their children.

The seven women and their children and other members of KWRU, as well as members of ADAPT, demonstrated today to demand that the city of Philadelphia take responsibility for saving the lives of endangered women and their families, by providing temporary safe shelter at either hidden safehouses or motels.

The situation is an urgent one, indeed one of life and death:

• Just two days ago, one of the homeless KWRU mothers was hospitalized, because, unable to find emergency safe housing for herself and her six children, she returned to an abusive household.
• Another of the women is being threatened with having her children removed by DHS because she cannot secure safe housing or shelter.

These women and their families have applied numerous times to the city for emergency housing, and have already been homeless for several months. Just before Christmas, KWRU members were arrested at City Hall protesting for housing for these women and their children. Cheri Honkala, herself a domestic violence victim, and some of the other women were charged with misdemeanors in the third degree (the heaviest penalty before a felony), and given stay-away orders from City Hall. Why are women being criminalized and banned from government buildings for trying to get themselves and their children out of potentially deadly situations?

On March 1st, ironically the first day of Women's History Month, and a week before International Women's Day, preliminary hearings will be held to decide if this case will be tried. We put a call out to the women's movement, to human rights advocates, to the legal community and to all people concerned for the lives of women and children, and for the fate of our rights to protest WHEN OUR LIVES ARE AT STAKE, to join us and help us pack the courtroom on March 1st. Please send in letters of support.