Teen Services gets six-month leave – The Royal Gazette

Created: November 2, 2024 at 07:59

Olga Scott dies in front of Teen Haven and Teen Services, which she helped create (file photo)

A shelter for defenseless women and their children that was threatened eviction through his trustees he was granted temporary leave to reside at his headquarters in Pembroke.

Teen Haven and Teen Services have also received assurances of support from the government, according to Zina Darrell, director of the charity’s board.

Ms Darrell said representatives of the charity appeared before Judge Maria Sofianos in Family Court on Thursday, and Ms Sofianos agreed to a one-time postponement of the eviction for six months.

“The eviction order has been suspended, so it has been taken off the table,” Ms. Darrell said.

“We will not be able to return for an extended period of time and we have been told that there must be a dialogue between the parties within the next six months.”

Ms Darrell said the charity’s bosses had been “encouraged to come back to the table and engage in dialogue” with the three-member Haven Trust, which owns the property at 4 Happy Valley Road where the placed in 2000.

Teen Haven and Teen Services were headquartered in Berkeley Hill, Pembroke.

The move to the newest property, a former residence adjacent to the Fort Hamilton site, was negotiated by the government after the charity’s previous home was swallowed up by the expansion of Berkeley Institute High School.

Roxanne Christopher, president of Teen Services, announced Tuesday alongside executive director Wendy Augustus and clinical social worker Elaine Charles that relations between Teen Services’ board of directors and the Haven Trust had become acrimonious, with trustees refusing to speak further with them and ordering the foundation to surrender the property.

A lawyer for Haven Trust said at the time that the group declined to comment.

The board said the charity was ordered to vacate the property by the end of October. The group believed there were plans to privately develop the site.

Mrs. Darrell said Gazeta Królewska yesterday: “There is undoubtedly room for this meeting to be amicable and develop into something lasting.”

While she declined to provide details about who in the Bermuda government spoke to the charity, she said: “They have shown us that they will support us in our mission and they do.

“All I can say is that there have been clear signs of support for Teen Haven. I am not privy to say who was present.

“I am aware that I respect the negotiations and the meeting was private.”

Ms Darrell said the group wanted to wait until the “dust settles”.

She added: “You have to remember that there is the spirit of the law and the letter of the law.

“The letter of the law gives them permission to evict, but the spirit of the law makes it unethical.”

Teen Services revealed this week that, under the original legislation, neither Teen Services nor Teen Haven were expressly named as beneficiaries of the Trust, which had broad powers simply to act on behalf of vulnerable women.

Ms Darrell said: “Since the mid-1960s, trust law and the law in general have been under review.

“I believe it is necessary to seriously analyze these documents. They are no longer relevant to the purpose of the trust. They have no application under trust law.

“We need to renew and verify these documents in such a way that both sides are satisfied and can agree to cooperate.”

She said the charity had been working with law firm Cox Hallett Wilkinson throughout. She added: “We were all overcome with emotion and we hope that now that we have been evicted from the table we can do it.”

Earlier, Ms Christopher stated that the Teen Haven shelter, which has now converted to house older women, currently had no residents and was turning people away because officials could not expose women and children to “trauma” from police and bailiffs arriving at the property to enforce an eviction.

Ms Darrell said there was now a possibility the charity would be able to help clients in the short term.

“Hopefully we will be able to look at it in the future and get people into the facility – it is doable.”