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BY BILL DOLAN
Times Staff Writer | Friday, October 03, 2003 | (No comments posted.)
CROWN POINT -- A shelter for abused women is being criticized following a police report that claims the facility refused to house a teenager allegedly tortured with electrical shocks.
Michael Higgins, a Lake County police spokesman, said St. Jude House declined to house a mentally handicapped 18-year-old after she was rescued last week from a Calumet Township home.
Police found evidence 36-year-old Keith E. Jax and his 46-year-old wife, Marie C. Jax, confined the girl in a locked room, beat and administered electrical shocks to her genitals.
"This is a travesty," said Teresa Torres, executive director of Everybody Counts Center for Independent Living, an advocacy group for the disabled. "Not just human decency, but federal law required that they provide that young lady with the same services that are made available to everyone else."
Steve Butera, client services director for St. Jude House, denied the allegation.
"We don't really refuse anyone service," he said
He declined to discuss the 18-year-old's case citing privacy concerns.
"I would suggest that people not assume that someone hasn't been served," he said. "It's possible this person was served. They may have been served here at St. Jude House, and we identified some better, additional or different services for them."
Torres said nonprofit women's shelters are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which makes it illegal to deny anyone on the basis of disability.
"These organizations solicit funds to help people who are in crisis," she said. "We're talking about whole populations of people who are particularly vulnerable, and to just dismiss them out of hand is not acceptable. "
Torres contends the allegation is not an isolated case. She said a young Gary woman beaten by her mother earlier this year was turned away by the Gary's Rainbow Shelter for physical disabilities resulting from a gunshot wound that caused partial paralysis.
Torres said the Gary woman was accepted into St. Jude House, but she was gone the next day when she couldn't assist with dishwashing chores.
"The next day she was told if she couldn't wash dishes she couldn't stay," Torres said, adding the Gary woman has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Joy Heminger, community awareness director for St. Jude, said she couldn't discuss individual cases, but reiterated that the 30-bed facility doesn't turn away disabled clients.
The Jaxes have pleaded not guilty to criminal deviate conduct, battery and child neglect charges following their Sept. 24 arrest.
Police said they answered a distress call at 4301 Hayes St. and found the young woman and three children living in filth. The young woman and another witness living in the house allege Keith Jax shocked the teenager's toe and vagina with electrical wires, and Marie Jax raped the teenager with a fireplace poker.
Higgins said police arrested the couple. Lake County's Child Protective Services took custody of the three children.
He said officers attempted to take the teenager to St. Jude, but the staff there demanded first that police provide them with medical records concerning the girl's mental disabilities.
Higgins said they had no such documents for the young woman. He said police eventually were able to place her in a Porter County shelter.
St. Jude House has been open since 1995 and serves between 700 and 800 women each year, Heminger said. They have an annual budget of about $1 million, of which 23 percent comes from federal and state grants. The rest comes from the Franciscan Sisters Community and private donors.
"There are many resources available to domestic violence shelters to modify their programs or services, but unfortunately we have often found a real reluctance on their part to investigate those resources," Torres said.
Butera said St. Jude routinely provides clients with services not available within the shelter.
"We do link the client to those services whether they are in our facility or in another facility within the community," he said. "We have even had people who have had disabilities where we have brought in skilled nurses or professionals to assist them.
"We have many clients with mental health problems. We are happy to serve them. We don't have mental health counselors on staff. We refer people to South Lake Center for Mental Health for those kinds of services."
Butera said the shelter must consider the safety of the client and others before accepting them. Sometimes the shelter refers them to an evaluation at a mental health center, perhaps for an in-patient stay when someone is suicidal or homicidal, he said.
"They would probably need a more secure kind of environment that provide them with mental health services that are more appropriate. It would probably be negligent on our part to ignore that and let them stay," Butera said.
Bill Dolan can be reached at bdolan@nwitimes.com or (219) 662-5328.
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