Article Published Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Shelters give hope to women, children

By Melissa Moy
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

SAN LEANDRO -- In the middle of the night, Camille Moreno-Constantino would wake up to screams and loud crashes. Her next-door neighbor would cry out as her husband beat her, screamed at the children, and threw furniture around the home.

It became a weekly ritual for 12-year-old Camille and her family to rush outside and catch the children as the mother passed them over the fence to safety, Moreno-Constantino recalls of her childhood in Belize.

"He did very furious things to her," said Moreno-Constantino, now 30, and a program director for a San Leandro shelter for women and children. "He (caused) emotional and verbal abuse and horrible physical abuse."

Her neighbor's situation inspired Moreno-Constantino to help.

"It encouraged me to want to do work that would help women (and empower them)," she said. Moreno-Constantino became a founding board member for Belize's first shelter for battered women, and she helped lobby for passage of the 1994 Domestic Violence Act in Belize.

At Building Futures with Women & Children, Moreno-Constantino and other workers have found a lifetime cause helping women and children escape their batterers.

Some, like Moreno-Constantino, are inspired by their own experiences. Another worker, Sherry Baker, was once battered, drug dependent and homeless but now uses her experience to help other women, shelter workers said.

Formed in 1986, the nonprofit group has three havens for women and children in the East Bay, including a 20-bed safe house Sister Me Home. In February, the group will open a fourth center, -- Bessie Coleman Court, at the former Alameda Naval Air Base. This center will offer transitional and permanent housing.

The group also operates Midway Shelter in Alameda. In addition to food and shelter, it offers counseling, tutoring for children, and parenting support. It is among the groups to receive a portion of the Share the Spirit fund donated by Times readers.

Last year, the agency provided 13,000 shelter nights to more than 350 women and children, and responded to more than 2,500 crisis calls.

At the 30-bed San Leandro Shelter, resident advocate and case worker Janice Granby runs the children's program. On a recent evening Granby and volunteers helped the children make reindeer ornaments and Christmas decorations.

"These are all my babies," said Granby, gesturing to the six children sitting around a table. Because of the trauma the children experience, many are anxious, withdrawn and sometimes act out violently, she said. "My biggest hope is that they just get to be kids, to be silly. They deserve to laugh and not worry."

"The bigger picture is what keeps me going," Moreno-Constantino said. "As long as we are able to keep women safe from the abuser and the woman has made a commitment to be safe, (that's a successful intervention).

"If we create awareness in one person (about domestic violence) that helps another woman, then step by step, it's one person at a time that a difference will happen."

Hundreds of individuals and families in Contra Costa County and Alameda County's Tri-Valley area need the aid provided by reader donations to the Times' Share the Spirit Fund. Simply clip out the coupon accompanying this story and send it to the address printed on it. The fund is administered by the Volunteer Center of Contra Costa, with administrative costs paid by the Times. Every penny of reader money goes directly to aid for the needy. Readers with questions and corporations interested in making larger donations can contact Times community relations manager Lisa Hotchkiss at 925-943-8105.