The Battered Women’s Shelter in Akron has an ENTIRE floor in their spiffy new building that has never been opened to shelter people. They own an entire apartment building that sits empty. They tore down a house designated as a shelter (no easy feat to get “shelter” status.)
I wish I could say they are the only ones in town that withhold shelter as people literally freeze on our streets. The local Catholic Worker’s Movement is sitting on two empty houses.
It goes on and on. Empty houses and buildings owned by churches, and non-profits who are in the business of sheltering those most in need.
And why do they withhold shelter? Money, of course. They are filled with the “what ifs.” What if someone hurts themselves in our house? What if they sue us?
All the while, they are comfortable with the grandest “WHAT IF” of them all. WHAT IF a person dies on the street because you were too afraid to do the right thing?