Safe Harbor

Stacey King

I’m giving one star because Google will not allow me to rate any lower. I had the extreme displeasure of living in this “safe house” for almost 9 months and I’ll just start out by saying very rarely did I actually feel safe here. I gave birth to my son while I was a resident in the trafficking program and they allowed me to stay in that shelter where I knew the staff and other residents instead of making me go to a different safe harbor shelter where other children were located. Which I appreciated, USUALLY…. HOWEVER; One night, two other residents who were known to be aggressive and cause trouble got angry because no one expressed to them that all of the food in the house was for EVERYONE.. anyways one girl made a pizza and got mad because I ate a slice of it (one person made dinner for the whole house every night) the girl who made the pizza got extremely angry and started threatening me and my son. (Who was maybe 3 months old at the time) saying that she was going to “fling him across the room” and I was not allowed to call the director of the program McKayla and tell her what happened. Hours later at shift change, Another staff member Talia FINALLY did something about it. But here’s the thing… the girls who were threatening me were yelling at me and calling me names for nothing for several weeks leading up to this. I went to staff several times and nothing happened. My issue with this is that I was i was in the program to heal from being in an abusive relationship where I was yelled at and called names for nothing, so with this stuff going on I was being repeatedly victimized while I’m supposed to be “healing”because they would say the other girls weren’t “as far along in their process as you are”. Which in my opinion, is a bs excuse to allow verbal abuse and threats to take place. Now, to be honest that situation where my baby was being threatened WAS HANDLED a few days later by Keisha, and for that I was grateful. There were MULTIPLE occasions that other residents needed emergency treatment for mental health issues and self harming behavior and they were treated not only like they were inconveniencing the staff, but as if the anxiety and depression they were experiencing weren’t real, or were being over exaggerated. Which brings me to my next point, I should not know NEARLY as much about the other residents medical/ mental health issues but I do, and to be truthful, 85% of the time the information was told to me by STAFF MEMBERS who had a obligation BY LAW to uphold the right to privacy of the women receiving “care” in the trafficking program. Next, many kind hearted donors go above and beyond to donate some really nice things to the shelter and it’s such an amazing blessing to the ladies that are living there, BUT; some of the staff pick through the donations and take whatever they want for themselves before the donations are even put away in a space that the residents have access to them which isn’t fair because obviously, the employees are working.. they have money and they can go wherever they want to and buy whatever they please so it’s really not cool. To wrap this review up I want to thank all the donors who purchased things for my son for my baby shower! You really took the weight of the world off of my shoulders when it came to my son since my family was half way across the country and couldnt do much because of Covid. McKayla was the best staff member and really the only one who cared about the people in the program and it showed. Another huge mistake they made was when Courtney (the case manager) left, the chose Destiny to take over her position.. Destiny was a girl who worked over night a few days a week, the residents bedtime was 11 on the weekdays and 12 on WeekendsDestiny came in at 10 pm so she spent and hour to two hours at the absolute most per shift with the residents… the entire 9 months I was there she worked during the day ONE TIME ! So for her to become the case manager was awful. But after 2-3 mos she’s being replaced.. for the residents Sake I pray the next one is better.

Teneika Prince-Jennings

Kim is amazing! She jumps right in to assist in time if crisis. She encourages you to keep pushing when you are determined to give up. She is a motivator and awesome support system. She makes herself available no matter what else she may have going on. I appreciate all that she does and encourage anyone seeking this service to trust the process!