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He-M 314.05 Personal rights
You must be treated with respect and dignity regardless of the reasons that you came to the shelter or for services. Staff and volunteers cannot abuse, neglect or exploit you. (Mistreat, forget to serve, ignore you or your needs, take advantage of you) Residents have the right to have anything in their records keep confidential and you and your situation can only be discussed to other people when you give your permission, *Or as it is required by law.

*As required by law means: a shelter employee may disclose information about you if they need to report a crime committed at the shelter. They may also talk about you to an employee of another shelter, that you may be moving to or have applied to if you committed an act of violence or threatened violence on the shelter property with the last 72 hours.

You have a right to privacy such as knocking on closed doors before entering; the right to send and receive unopened and uncensored mail, the right to have reasonable access to a phone for things related to job searches, housing, medical appointments and other related matters, (shelters are not required to provide phones for personal calls, to friends family etc.) you may be required to pay for long distance calls.

You have the right to be free from searches, except searches that are made under constitutional and legal standards, routine screening or scanning for weapons upon entering the shelter. And you cannot be the only one being searched, they must search everyone, otherwise it may be discrimination.

Cold and Severe Weather Rules
No emergency shelter can make residents stay outside any part of the day from October 1st to April 30th, unless reasonable arrangements are made to use alternative indoor site, which is available while shelter is closed. They must also let you in during severe weather between May 1st and September 30th, unless they provide an alternative site.

He-M 314.06 Admission
If you are eligible for this particular shelter, you cannot be turned away if there is beds or rooms available, (except as in He-314.07) Shelters must be able to approve admission to shelter at least during 18 hours of each day. 7 days a week. A shelter can make you wait to enter until the evening hours when they are open except when weather rules apply. At least, they must admit you to a bed when the shelter is open during evening hours and only at other hours if they have staff available. You cannot be turned away from a shelter because you do not have money to pay or you do not have another agency that is willing to pay for you. Shelters may set up a sliding scale fee, which allows some people who are currently unemployed or lack funds, to still have shelter. At the time of admission, shelters have to tell you what the daily fee is, if any and what you will be charged. These fees must be structured so that they don’t affect your ability to go into permanent housing.

He-M 314.07 Denial of admission or termination of service
You may be denied shelter for these 3 reasons:
1. if the shelter lacks space; 2. if it is a special shelter and you do not fit the population they serve; or 3. if you pose a direct threat to the health and safety of others in the shelter and the shelter is unable to provide you with a reasonable adjustment, which would end the risk of direct threat. When a person is denied admission on this basis, the shelter may contact the police for protective custody or other services.

Whenever a person is denied admission to a shelter, the shelter is supposed to advise you of the reasons for denial and make every effort to locate and alternative shelter And inform you of the shelters grievance process, if the denial is for any reason other than lack of space or failure to meet the shelters admission criteria Shelters must maintain a log of people they have denied and of persons that have been told to leave and the reasons. And the log will be forwarded to the division of Behavioral Health upon request.

A person may be asked to leave a shelter for the following reasons:
if you engage in a behavior which threatens the health and safety of others, or if you pose a direct threat to yourself; you may also be asked to leave if you are intoxicated or under the influence of illegal drugs or if you are extremely disruptive to the use of enjoyment of the shelter by other residents; if you steal or destroy property of the shelter or other residents. (If you deny an allegation of the previous statement and you file a grievance you should not be required to leave unless you are arrested by the police or the allegation is proved to be true after a review of the shelters internal grievance procedure).

Whenever someone is asked to leave, the shelter will make a written record, which contains the following information: A full description of the your behavior that made the shelter ask you to leave; the names of the person’s that were affected by your behavior; if you were asked to leave because it was believed you were intoxicated or under the influence of illegal substances, the record must have a staff person’s explanation for believing that you were under the influence. And the staff member that witnessed the event must sign the record. If a staff person did not witness the behavior that results in you being asked to leave, staff must investigate the allegation and in the record it will name the staff person that did the investigation.

No one should be asked to leave because they have been at the shelter too long. Emergency shelters must report to the division of behavioral health when someone’s stay exceeds one year.