PLACE OF REFUGE
Safe house helps troubled women regain child custody
The smell of scrambled eggs wafts in the air as several women cook breakfast. A newborn baby cries in the living room, and toddlers wander through the house. It’s a typical morning in a not-so-typical house. The residents are women with troubled pasts, victims of human trafficking, former prostitutes and drug addicts.
Two goals unite them and brings them to the two-story, five-bedroom house in southwest Las Vegas: having a safe place to live and regaining custody of their children.
The women pay a $300 program fee each month to stay at the drug-free house, which is operated by a local nonprofit, It’s All About Kidz, founded two years ago by Marina Rit-Bloom.
“I’m kind of like the mom,” Rit-Bloom said earlier this month as she sat in the living room with the women after they were done cooking.
The nonprofit helps women execute their
case plans to get their children out of the foster care system and back under their roof.
The house can hold up to 10 women and now has eight women and six children. It will be at full capacity by mid-July.
Kimberly, 21, who didn’t want her last name disclosed because of her sensitive situation, is one of the house’s residents.
She arrived in February after getting out of a drug rehabilitation center.
Kimberly has three children, a 10month old girl, a 2-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl. They have been in foster care for almost two years.
“I spent half of my life prostituting,” she said. That was all she knew. Kimberly, who grew up in Las Vegas, was in foster care herself. Her mother used drugs and was involved in prostitution. Her father wasn’t a big part of her life, she said.
Kimberly attends substance abuse counseling and group sessions offered by WestCare and Choices Group Inc. three days a week because she wants to get her children back.
She also wants to break the troubled cycle in her family and help her children live a better life.
Kimberly had a court hearing Friday, and there was a high chance her parental rights could be terminated. Rit-Bloom said she was given more time and will have another hearing in a couple of months.
“If she wasn’t in this program, they wouldn’t have continued,” Rit-Bloom said of the hearing.
Clark County Department of Family Services Director Lisa Ruiz-Lee said that generally, when a child is removed from a home, the case moves through the court process and her agency develops a case plan.
The plan is based on the current situation and allegations involved, but the families’ histories could come into play, she said.
“Those case plans establish the framework on which we work to return children,” she said. “Every case is unique. It totally depends on what it is that their issues are.”
The nonprofit helps clients meet case plan goals, Rit-Bloom said. It has helped about 15 women regain custody of their children in the past two years. Most of the women come to the nonprofit’s home straight from the Clark County Detention Center, where they hear of the nonprofit’s services through word of mouth.
“I’ve been doing this with nothing,” Rit-Bloom said.
Rit-Bloom said she was motivated to start the nonprofit after working with women in recovery for 12 years while living in Los Angeles. She is the mother of a 4-year-old, which strengthened her desire to help struggling mothers.
Most of the women pay their program fee with money they receive from welfare. That fee covers food, bills and the support they receive to get their children back and help them get back up on their feet.
The nonprofit tries to find ways to bring in funding, Rit-Bloom said, and a few churches donate, but it’s not consistent.
“It’s a pilot program,” she said. “People may still be a little hesitant.”
But they manage to stay afloat with what they have.
The most rewarding experience for Rit-Bloom, regardless of the tight financial situation, is when her nonprofit helps “take a child off foster care and place (him or her) in a house with a mother.”
Rit-Bloom eventually plans to expand the program. She recently approached officials at Clark County Family Court with the idea of opening a similar home for teenage girls who find themselves in similar situations.
Family Court Judge William Voy said the need is not huge numerically, but it is there.
The difference when dealing with youth, however, is that the program would be mandatory.
Rit-Bloom helps women who typically come to her on their own, which means their outcomes are going to be a lot better, he said.
Courtney Shea, 39, was one of the first residents at the nonprofit’s house in 2011. She has a 17-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son.
When she arrived, she had her daughter, but she didn’t have her son. She used to have alcohol and drug problems and was referred to the nonprofit by someone with Clark County Child Protective Services.
She eventually got her son back and is now living in a house with both of her children. She’s also drug- and alcoholfree.
“I feel very blessed,” she said. “I absolutely believe in this program, and I wish that there was more funding. I owe everything to this program.”
Voy said officials are interested in efforts that would help the younger population dealing with similar issues, but the conversation with the nonprofit is still in the early stages.
“I know the program works,” RitBloom said.