Homeless women in Williamsburg will now have to find someplace besides the town’s homeless shelter, Emergency Christian Ministries, to stay.
Bill Woodward, director and case manager at Emergency Christian Ministries, said the organization made the decision about a week ago to house only men for at least the time being.
Woodward said that the last woman moved out of Emergency Christian Ministries on Monday and no more are being accepted right now.
Woodward said the shelter, which has been open since 1991, has always had to work to keep the male and female occupants separated, even though they each have separate dormitories.
Over the last year, Woodward said the problem of men and women trying to sneak into one another’s room has increased significantly.
"It seems that in the last year things have just gotten out of hand," Woodward noted. "We want to do good. We are Christian-oriented. Of course, we can’t have any fornication or adultery going on up here."
He said the decision to house only men instead of only women simply came down to numbers and the fact that the shelter gets a lot more males than it does females.
Woodward noted that the shelter didn’t put anyone out in the cold and made arrangements for women staying at the shelter to go somewhere else and helped them get there.
Emergency Christian Ministries has an agreement with the KCEOC shelter in Gray, to house its female clientele. The Gray shelter houses only women, Woodward said.
Woodward said that it is unclear at this point when the ministry will begin allowing women to stay there again.
He said some renovations would need to be done to help keep the men and women separated before women are allowed to return.
This kind of work takes money though, and it will boil down to how long it takes the shelter to raise the funds.
Emergency Christian Ministries can house up to 60 people at one time, but Woodward noted that the ministry is also in need of some new mattresses and cots.
Anyone wanting to make a donation to the shelter or who would like to assist it in any way can call Woodward at 549-2922 or contact him by mail at Emergency Christian Ministries, 630 S. Highway 25W, Williamsburg, KY 40769.
