DETROIT – People inside Detroit Rescue Mission and Ministries women and children’s shelter are sounding the alarm on safety concerns.
Local 4 sat down on Saturday with one mom inside the building, who says she has several concerns.
Her first concern began when she realized the shared bathrooms don’t lock.
“I don’t know whether they may walk in on my area, and there’s no locks on the door,” she said. “It’s not safe for me and my kid.”
The shelter’s CEO, Dr. Chad Audi, tells Local 4 the shelter is home to about 100 people right now. There is one bathroom for every two rooms.
Local 4 toured the shelter Saturday night and asked if the bathrooms are able to be locked.
At first, they were told they did lock. Then, Local 4 asked to see one of the bathrooms and tried to lock one.
“We don’t lock the rooms because there’s children, so they just announce themselves,” a woman who works at the shelter said.
That leads to another concern -- their website says this is a shelter for women and children.
“Is this a women and children shelter?” Local 4 asked the CEO.
“Yes, women and children,” Audi said.
“So there are no men?” Local 4 asked.
“There is, if they are married,” Audi said.
“How many dads are here?” Local 4 asked.
“Maximum we’ve ever had was five,” Audi said.
The mom says that without a way to lock the shared bathrooms and dads here when she wasn’t expecting it, she is worried about her kid ending up in the bathroom with a man.
She also says she wasn’t able to use her bathroom when she arrived because it was clogged up with a man’s beard shavings.
“I went to the front desk and asked if they could do something about it and they said they would let maintenance know. Again, I’ve been there since before Christmas, and nobody has done anything,” she said.
She ended up microwaving water to get hot water to clean herself up.
The shelter says there’s an upstairs bathroom to use if the shared ones aren’t working.
“How long has this been here?” Local 4 asked about a sign on the upstairs bathroom door.
The sign says “all clients please keep shower area clean and tidy after each use.”
The shelter says it’s been there for quite some time. The mom says it was taped up today after we called.
“I am just going through a lot and I just feel like we should feel safe and happy even though we are going through something,” the mom said.