ABSTRACT
This chapter considers several ways in which shelter services affect battered women and their children: the particular shelters philosophy of service to battered women and their children, and how shelter staff approach social change regarding the status of women, how the shelter meets the immediate and long-term needs of the shelter residents, and what role feminist models play in achieving the shelters objectives. It believes crisis intervention with a feminist perspective as an adjunct to the general support, and perhaps psychotherapy, needed by some women. Radical feminists view violence as the result of women's power-lessness in the social structure, the political economy, and their personal relationships with men. The shelters sub-standard physical features served as a symbolic reminder of society's devaluation of women: not only are the victims of violence, rather than their assailants, required to leave their homes, but for many their substitute home represents a drastic reduction in their standard of living.
