Homeless Shelter

The homeless shelter of Paws is an establishment dedicated to housing the poor of Britannia and appears in Ultima VII.

Description
With the Minoxian  poor houses then a thing of the distant past, the homeless shelter of Paws was the sole institution of its type during the early Age of Enlightenment. Operated by Feridwyn and his wife Brita, the shelter was run through Fellowship support and funding, and had a controversial policy of only extending its services to those who agreed to eventually join its parent organization. This prerequisite drew considerable ire from several members of the community - most notably two vagrant beggars (Komor and Fenn) who slept in the streets rather than partake of Fellowship charity.

During the time of the Avatar's adventures in this era, the shelter housed a former farmer named Merrick, a struggling young mother named Alina and her child, Cassie. Interestingly the shelter's proprietors (Feridwyn, Brita and their son Garritt) also slept in the same common areas reserved for the destitute - demonstrating a sentiment of equality seldom seen in operations ministering to the poor.

Later, after the Fellowship's true nature was publicly revealed and its organization disbanded, the shelter closed temporarily - unable to sustain itself without adequate funding. While Feridwyn - a man innocent of any ties to the Guardian - later spoke to the Avatar during Ultima Underworld II of his intentions to continue his work, the shelter's continued existence seemed uncertain, and no such establishment could be found during the days of Ultima IX.

Trivia

 * If the Avatar is lethally injured during the course of Ultima VII, they will be revived at the Paws' homeless shelter, having allegedly been brought there by Elizabeth and Abraham.
 * Policies which exclude the impoverished from receiving aid unless they fall in line with a charity or organization's beliefs are not unheard of in the real world, and many accounts exist regarding people who have been turned away from aid or even from volunteering due to ideological conflicts.