NATCHEZ — After more than 10 years as an emergency safe haven for abused children, the Sunshine Shelter has closed its doors.

Major funding cuts and a recent decline in children sent to the shelter forced the shelter’s board of directors to close earlier this month, board member Scott McLemore said.

In 2010, the shelter lost a $46,000 Victims of Crime Act assistance grant from the U.S. Department of Public Safety, and another $26,000 in federal funding was cut from shelter funding in 2011.

In addition to the funding cuts, McLemore said the shelter had trouble stretching its dollars because the price the Mississippi Department of Human Services paid the shelter per child per day for care had not changed in at least the past eight years.

“It wasn’t adjusted for inflation or for the fact that the price of caring for children has increased over the years,” McLemore said.

The Sunshine Shelter temporarily housed children for up to 45 days who had been taken into protective custody by DHS because of allegations of abuse or neglect. The shelter served 13 counties in Mississippi and Vidalia.

Former shelter director Matilda Stephens said last year MDHS reimbursed the center $55 per child a night, but the actual cost was $128.

Stephens said a policy instituted by MDHS as a settlement agreement for a lawsuit filed against the department by Children’s Rights, an advocacy group for government child welfare services reform, also hurt the shelter. The policy mandated that all possible efforts should be made to place abused children directly in a foster home within a 50-mile radius of their home.

Stephens said the policy meant emergency shelter placement should be a last resort. She said most of the children that were sent to the Sunshine Shelter prior to the policy were from outside a 50-mile radius. Stephens said the policy caused a drop in the number of children housed at the shelter and decreased funding, but she said the children were the ones who suffered the most.

“If there are no foster homes available and no shelter within 50 miles, then what do you do with that child?” Stephens said.

Stephens left the shelter shortly before it closed for personal health reasons, and she said she hoped the shelter’s closing is not permanent. Stephens said the shelter’s board of directors “did a spectacular job of keeping the shelter afloat while it was open.”

“After the funding cuts and through the hard times over the years, never once did they say, ‘Let’s throw in the towel,’” she said. “They were so committed to what was in the best interest of the children.”

“Sometimes government makes it hard for you to do what you know is right,” Stephens said.

McLemore said the decision to close the shelter was very tough for the board.

“It wasn’t a decision anyone wanted to make,” McLemore said. “But given the current situation, it’s just something we had to do.”

McLemore said the board wanted to thank every person or organization that had ever donated time or money to the shelter.

“From 1999 until now, it made such an impact on the lives of the many children who passed through the shelter,” he said. “Everyone believed in the shelter, the staff believed in it and went above and beyond their duties to make a difference in the children’s lives. We’re very sad it had to close.”