Jean Spring looks forward to the day a local shelter for abused women and children opens in Pike County. She just wishes the day didn’t have to come at all.
Spring, director of Southwest Mississippi Christian Outreach Ministries, said the organization is on track with plans to open a safe place for battered families — the Southwest Mississippi Center for Nonviolence.
A local shelter is long overdue for Pike County, Spring said. Right now, there aren’t many options for local women looking to escape from their abusers. The nearest safe haven is the Guardian Shelter in Natchez. And although it’s available to help Pike County residents, it’s an hour’s drive from McComb.
“A lot of people can’t just pull up their roots and go to Natchez,” Spring said. “It means children would have to be uprooted.”
Now, Spring has stepped out on faith to spearhead efforts to open a shelter in McComb.
Last week, the Christian Ministries group put a down payment on property for a shelter in McComb.
Spring’s hope now is that the community — businesses, civic clubs, churches — will join in the effort to see that the building becomes a reality.
“It’s just a hull right now — a metal building with a concrete floor,” she said of the shelter space.
But there’s a list of needs — lumber and other building materials and insulation — among them. Habitat for Humanity will help convert the property into living quarters, Spring said, and local contractors have offered to volunteer their services.
When the shelter is complete, it will mean Spring won’t have to hide cars from abusers in the middle of the night while trying to find a place for victims to sleep. It will mean local victims will have access to doctors, nurses and counselors who will volunteer their time.
It will become a temporary safe home for women and children to stay.
“We want to keep them in their familiar surroundings as much as we possibly can,” Spring said.
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For Spring, the mission is personal. Her father was an alcoholic, and she remembers wondering who in the family would be the victim of his rage when he was drinking.
“Will it be Mama tonight or one of us?” she recalls asking herself.
But she said her father always found her — whether she hid in the bathtub, in a closet or even under the house.
Unfortunately, the number of people who need shelter from abuse continues to grow.
In 2007, Mississippi ranked fifth in the nation in the number of domestic homicides. And Mississippi has the second-highest domestic violence rate in the country.
Jamie Murrell, victims assistance coordinator for the District 14 District Attorney’s office, did her own number-crunching. She found 25 cases of domestic-violence murders that she had worked on in the DA’s office since 1995 in Pike, Walthall and Lincoln counties. Most were in Pike County.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year, and 85 percent of domestic violence victims are women. Sadly, the coalition said most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.
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Murrell said Spring has always done whatever was within her means to help the DA’s office when asked.
“I’ve been able to call this organization whenever I’ve had a victim in crisis or need, and they have been available as much as they could be,” Murrell said. “She’s never turned me down. … I appreciate all their efforts.”
She said abuse victims experience such a wide range of emotions it’s hard for them to see their situation clearly. The top three reasons women stay in abusive situations is fear, their children and their financial situation.
Murrell said victims experience fear, shame, depression, illness, parenting difficulties, physical injuries and a feeling of helplessness, even post-traumatic stress disorder. Abusers use coercion, threats, intimidation, isolation, denial and many times their own children to continue their abuse.
“(Victims) don’t have the clarity it takes to make good decisions. My hope is that whenever this center finally comes to fruition, it will be a safe haven for people,” Murrell said. “When they see the cycle of violence and see their children are in danger, they finally do leave. They have to recognize the imminent danger.”
And that danger is ever-present for families who live in abusive homes.
Spring said that on one Saturday this fall, two women came to her for help within an hour’s time. One had been tossed out of a moving vehicle. Both needed a place to stay. Spring did what she could and found immediate help for the women.
The Christian ministries organization pays for a place for victims to stay and makes sure women and children have food, clothing and transportation.
“It’s costing us a small fortune,” Spring said, adding that often there is no alternative because of the lack of a nearby shelter.
“I’m begging people to step up, to search their hearts and please contribute to this cause. It’s going on more than people are aware,” she said.
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Spring receives referrals for help by word of mouth and from law enforcement agencies, including the DA’s office.
Among the law enforcers — whom she said “are behind it 100 percent” — is Pike County Sheriff Mark Shepherd, who is on the board overseeing the shelter plans.
Shepherd has seen first-hand what abuse can do to families. As a law officer for nearly 30 years, he’s had many occasions to seek help for abuse victims and their children.
He said victims often have gone to the Natchez shelter, but it’s not the best-case scenario for many people. It’s tough having a local victim in an out-of-town shelter.
“Many times it involves children,” Shepherd said. “Natchez is difficult logistically. We have to get them there, and get them back for many reasons. It’s hard, if children are in school, for people to pick up roots and move temporarily.”
Shepherd said he tries to place abuse victims with relatives when possible.
“This (shelter) is something we need, and I hope it works. I hope people get behind it and support it,” Shepherd said. “Everybody knows somebody who’s been domestically abused. It doesn’t always have to be physical; it can be mental abuse.”
And, he noted, it’s not always the woman who is the victim. There are times when women are the abusers, although those cases aren’t nearly as prevalent.
Murrell said she wishes every community had a shelter for women to go to before they are seriously injured. The DA’s office typically doesn’t have contact with an abuse victim until someone has suffered physically.
“By the time it gets to us, it’s serious bodily injury or death. The abuser has used a weapon,” Murrell said. “There are so many cases on the misdemeanor level we don’t even see. But the effects of domestic violence on children is horrendous. The best way to protect kids is to protect the mom. It’s a huge problem in our area.”
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To make a donation, send checks payable to Southwest Christian Outreach Ministries, P.O. Box 2278, McComb, MS 39649, with a notation for the shelter on the check. Donations also may be made at the outreach ministries thrift store in Pike Center Mart, next to Sunflower.
