Countywide : Man Offers Building for Interface Shelter

A Ventura County man is working with a local battered women’s shelter to allow women who have fled abusive relationships to stay on his property while they rebuild their lives.

Interface Children Family Services, a nonprofit social services agency, hopes to begin placing abused women and their children in a small apartment building on the property by the fall, said Marty Bolton, Interface’s director of crisis services.

Bolton asked that the man’s name and address not be published to protect the safety of the families who will eventually stay on his property.

In an interview Tuesday, the owner said he planned to use the building, which has two apartments, for a business-related purpose. When that plan fell through, he called Interface, offering to allow them to use the building as a safe house for battered women.

Interface will pay utilities whenever its clients live there.

The agency already operates a shelter for abused women and their children at an undisclosed location. That shelter holds up to about 17 people and is usually full, Bolton said.

But the agency plans to use the apartment building “as a place to transfer women after they’ve been in our shelter,” she said. For information, call 485-6114 or 496-1994.