I have a 2 unit building with 3bedrooms in each. How do I start a Home for the homeless, battered women and?
Answer:
The very fist thing is check with your local municipalities for permission. The second, and probably the MOST important thing is to jack up the security to this home as much as humanly possible. You need to make your security visible to everyone. Mainly to soothe the nerves of the victims you are sheltering, but also to persuade their abusers that this is somewhere they might not want to try and come into. A friend of mine's wife works at the local battered women's shelter and the security there is impressive. Men cannot even step onto the property without security coming out to see what's up. Just the sight of a man will send some of those victims over the edge.
I have no idea, but you are good person for doing this...
The first thing you have to do is check with the county zoning department to see if that would be allowed in that neighborhood.
good girly
Go to your City Hall and they will tell you the laws, regulations, and requirements for taking such an action.
Hooray for you. Go to city manager and ask to be guided through the red tape so you can do some good in our world.
Your intentions are really admirable. Not many people would want to take their rental property and help the less fortunate. That said. I would recommend you team up with your local House of Ruth or whatever the local shelter is called, and let them use their experience to guide you. There's two options along this line: first, you could let them help you get the security, insurance, screening process, etc, and allow them to place the residents into your building. Or, you could simply rent the apartments out like normal rentals then take the rent you collect and donate it to the House of Ruth (or whatever shelter). Your generosity may go a lot longer in this second way--- by allowing battered women to stay in your apartment you might be able to help 6 women and their kids, but since many shelters get major discounts on utilities, taxes, donated goods, etc, the rent you collect off those apartments may actually be able to help 10 women and their kids (or more).
You need to go to the county offices where you live regarding housing and see what the zoning laws are. Then, I suggest you contact some agencies that feed and house the homeless/ battered women and children and get some information to help you. Check out federally funded programs that do this and see how they get their funding, most likely from grants and fundraising. If so, check out grant writers or become one yourself, just take a course at a community college, I did.
I give you a lot of credit to want to do this, what a blessing you will be to these folks.
Kudos to you for your care and generosity. Too bad there aren't more people like you in the world. If there were, it would be a better place! :-)
I would first contact our federal HUD offices for resources on ways you can help. I know they have a Section 8 program for homeless and/or low-income renters. Lessors can "rent" their house out to those who qualify for the program, and get the rent payment directly from the HUD.
http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/homeless/.
Another resource would be the National Coalition for the Homeless.
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/.
Lastly, do a Google search for "battered women". You'll get a huge list of organizations that would more than welcome any help they can get.
All of these resources most likely coordinate efforts with your local government or local chapters and could point you in the right direction.
Good luck and God Bless You!
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