League Seeks to Open Shelter for Addicts

A shelter for women alcoholics and drug addicts and their children has become the newest project of the Junior League of Pasadena.

Dubbed the Safe House project, the idea arose from counselor Myrtle Glenn’s 15 years of work with women addicts at the Jackie Robinson Center in Northwest Pasadena.

“Some of these people can’t get any sobriety,” Glenn said. “We have them four days a week for two hours and then they’re back out on the streets or whatever environment they came from.”

As envisioned by Glenn, the safe house would provide housing and counseling for up to 90 days to enable low-income women to break their addictions.

Only two such programs exist for low-income women with children in the San Gabriel Valley, Glenn said, and more programs are needed. Glenn said she often cannot find a program with vacancies to accept women from the counseling program at the Jackie Robinson Center.

The 64-year-old Pasadena league, a women’s volunteer organization, took up the project as one of 10 it is working on this year, President Joan Favre said.

With $4,500 in league money, members hope to organize a Safe House Coalition of individuals and service agencies to work on the idea and establish the shelter by May, 1992.

The coalition will decide whether to create a separate, nonprofit organization to run the house or have it adopted by an existing social service agency. Funding and location will also be worked out.