Cindy Rios, executive director at The Haven Home, a shelter for pregnant mothers and mothers with young children, put out the call for food early Thursday. The Slavic Village shelter had been without power since the summer storm hit Tuesday, and without a generator they could not cook for the shelter’s 10 families – including six children under the age of 5.
“We started thinking about what are we going to do, how are we going to manage this?” Rios said.
Quickly, offers rolled in to bring over sandwiches and dinner.
When the storm first hit, families hunkered in the shelter’s study, cool basement. But as the outage lingered, they moved to the gym at St. Elizabeth Baptist Church, which is on the same campus as the shelter.
Families are unable to do laundry or take a hot shower. Most rely on their phones for everything — from making doctor appointments to contacting family members and entertaining children, Rios said.
“This is a great bunch of resilient women,” Rios said. Many have been through worse, sleeping in cars, outside or in places where they weren’t welcome before coming to the shelter, which helps families transition into permanent housing. “But at the same time, the longer this goes on the less patience.”
Rios had hoped that some of the families might be able to go to Laura’s Home, another shelter, but they were also without power. The power companies should prioritize restoring power to shelters, Rios said. She also looked into booking rooms at local hotels but they were mostly full and too expensive.
About half of the shelter residents were able to find places to charge devices or spend the night but some don’t have any family.
“If we had a whole building generator, ” Rios said, “this would just be a blip in the road for us.” But right now, the shelter can’t afford to purchase and install one.
