A Kentucky homeless shelter is currently under fire because it evicted all women over assumptions that they were using the facility to have sex with men. This action has left women and their children out in the cold right before the Christmas holiday and the nearest shelter that allows women is a lengthy distance away.
The Emergency Christian Ministries director, Billy Woodward, said the action was based on Biblical teachings and not on prejudice or bias. He added that women using the shelter as a means of hooking up with men by sneaking off with them into rooms would not be tolerated as the shelter is not a dating service.
The action sets an unfair precedent concerning personal behavior in public spaces such as homeless shelters. It places all of the responsibility on women without addressing male actions in a tempting situation. Woodward’s remarks remove value from the real reasons women go to homeless shelters, namely poverty, abuse and the inability to advance in the workplace.
Woodward’s decision comes at a time when 20 percent of Kentucky’s population is living at the poverty level, which is the fifth-highest in the United States. Currently, there are only a half-dozen organizations available in the state to assist homeless people.