October 20, 2008

A Safe Haven

Did you ever wonder what happens to all of those hotel rooms that sit empty night after night? Few, if any hotels and motels have 100% occupancy 365 nights a year. In 1991 Naomi Berman-Potash who was working in the hotel industry at the time, asked that very same question. It came to her after she read a news article that discussed the shortage of safe rooms for women who arrive at local shelters for battered women. Naomi thought immediately of the empty hotel rooms she knew were to be found throughout the country, and had the "aha moment!"…why couldn’t she connect the shelters with hotels in their area and solve a serious problem? Naomi knew that there were details that needed to be worked out but they were just that – details, and before long she started Project Debby. Today, more than 17 years since its founding, Project Debby has provided thousands of women with safe haven while hotels throughout this country work in cooperation with local shelters to make it possible.

Project Debby works with minimal overhead and in our last phone conversation with Naomi we heard about her latest successes in getting the program to more cities. We have just sent her some funds to keep her good work going…it is a true life-saver.