ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 14, 1996 TAG: 9612160037
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
If you're a stable married couple with patience, a big heart and a strong affection for children, Shelter Home has the toughest job you'll ever love.
The home desperately needs live-in houseparents to replace the present couple, who are leaving Jan. 15. As of today, there are no applicants.
Unless some candidates emerge, Shelter Home might have to close, temporarily at least. That means the children who live there will have to move again.
Shelter Home may be the only stability in their young lives. From infants to teen-agers, they've been removed by the courts from turmoil or abuse in their natural homes.
The facility, inconspicuously located in a Blacksburg residential neighborhood, lends these children a semblance of normality. There they sleep, eat, leave for school, do homework, watch television - all under the supervision of Shelter Home's houseparents.
Larry Taylor, Shelter Home's board chairman, admits the job is not for everyone. The hours are long and the physical and emotional stresses can be overwhelming at times.
"It's hard," said Beverly Moss, who has lived and worked at Shelter Home with her husband, George, for the past 18 months. "You have to pray a lot."
"The couple has to be wholeheartedly in it together," said Russ Rice, director of Montgomery County's Office on Youth.
"It's going to be a rewarding time. It's also going to be difficult," added Rice, who worked with his wife, Dawn, as Shelter Home's houseparents several years ago.
Shelter Home is a nonprofit agency that receives no direct government support. Formed 25 years ago by members of a Blacksburg Baptist Church Sunday school class, it generates its $40,000 annual budget primarily by donations from individuals, civic groups, church organizations or charities such as the United Way.
The home fills an important niche among New River Valley social service providers. It's a short-term, emergency safe haven for children caught in domestic crises.
Taylor estimates about 700 children have stayed at Shelter Home since 1971, some for only a few hours, others for more than a year. Change is the home's only constant, Moss said.
The children have been removed from their homes and parents by the court and placed at Shelter Home by local social services departments. Despite the disruption and separation anxieties, the home may be the first structured, supportive - and loving - environment they've ever experienced.
Houseparents and other foster children there form a surrogate family at the five-bedroom, two-bath house, which has an orderly, lived-in atmosphere. Maximum occupancy is seven; presently there are three children living at Shelter Home.
One of these is a 3-month-old baby girl who arrived at the home on the day after her birth. Her future is uncertain, but for now, she sleeps quietly on Beverly Moss' shoulder.
"She's going to be one of the hardest to give up," Moss said.
Moss and her husband, a Virginia Tech graduate student, will be having their first child in April. With parenthood impending, they've decided to leave. Already they've remained at Shelter Home longer than many other couples.
"It really strengthened our marriage. You learn to cling to what's consistent around you," she said.
The couple also managed to save some money by working at Shelter Home, where most living expenses are covered by the agency. The job's requirements are much like being an old-fashioned, full-time parent - cook, taxi driver, drill sergeant, counselor, saint.
Privacy comes at a premium. But the houseparents are not forced to accept children they feel uneasy about.
"They're not problem children. They're just children with problems," Taylor said. "They just happen to have been at the wrong place at the wrong time."
Mary Critzer, social work supervisor for Montgomery County's Social Services Department, said it's becoming harder to find foster homes for children.
"Children's problems are more difficult. And people are so busy these days, it's hard for them to find the time to be foster parents," she said.
Losing Shelter Home - even temporarily - would be unfortunate and another costly emotional disruption for the children who depend on the facility, she said.
So Critzer joins Taylor and other members of Shelter Home's board in hoping a special couple will come forward and apply for the job. Finding Shelter Home houseparents is never simple, Taylor said.
"You wouldn't do this job for the money," he added.
Moss said the job has lent insights about children that will make her and husband George better parents to their unborn.
"We all basically need to be loved. Everybody's searching for some kind of love, in good places and bad."
For more information about Shelter Home, contact Larry Taylor at 552-0220 or 231-6680.
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Alan Kim. Beveryl Moss, with a 3-month old girl who wasby CNBplaced in her care at Shelter Home in Blacksburg when the infant was
a day old. color.