Agency Programs

Emergency Shelter

In July 2002, St. PJ’s opened our first emergency children’s shelter. In September 2009, our latest state-of-the-art Valero Emergency Shelter officially opened its doors. Up to 32 adolescents can be placed there. Up to 27 children between the ages of two through 11 can be placed in our original shelter. Children can stay for a maximum of 90 days. Individual and ongoing assessments are conducted on each child during their stay as the shelter is an assessment center as well.

The shelters are licensed by the State of Texas and TDFPS contracted. Private placements are accepted on a case by case and sliding scale fee basis. The shelter is open 24 hours, seven days a week.

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A Story of Hope

A sibling group of four (9, 7, 6, 5) came into the shelter the other day; they’d been living in a tent in the back yard of their grandparent’s house, which was in a massive state of disarray. CPS removed the children because the house, which was supposed to be their “safety plan”, was filthy and chaotic with no room to walk or sit down. According to a neighbor the children were sleeping outside in a tent for about two weeks. When they came to the shelter the children had lice and their clothes were filthy. We welcomed them into the shelter and they made friends quickly and settled into the structure/routine of the shelter. When I offered the two older boys (9yrs & 7yrs) the opportunity to attend camp for a week, they were both so excited but the look on John’s (9 yr old) face was priceless; he was ecstatic. He asked “Is it like real camp…where you go and stay in cabins and swim in the river or lake and build a fire and sing around it at night and make those chocolate things with marshmallows and cookies?” At that point I was speechless and as my eyes filled with tears I said “yes”. Then he said “I always dreamed about doing this Mrs…thanks for making my dreams come true.”