Pam Belluck, Shelters for Women Disclosing Their Locations, in Spite of Risk, N.Y. Times, August 10, 1997, at A1.

Late one night last month, a woman leaving her shift at the battered women's shelter in this white-collar bedroom community was ambushed by a man who jumped out of the hatchback of her car, brandishing a knife. The man forced her to drive to a secluded construction site, where, the police said, he smashed her in the face with a beer bottle, cut off a lock of her hair, sliced open her dress and raped her.

At the time, said Chief Michael W. Valsi of the Crown Point police, the man's wife and their three children were taking refuge from him inside the shelter. Before the man raped the shelter employee, Chief Valsi said, he told her, " 'If I can't get to my wife, you'll do.'

" It was one of the more chilling attacks known to involve the staff of a battered women's shelter, but it is reverberating outside this graceful, well-manicured suburb for another reason. The rape cuts to the heart of a debate boiling up among people who work with victims of domestic violence: Should shelters make their locations public or keep them secret?

The Crown Point shelter, St. Jude House, has deliberately publicized its location since it opened nearly two years ago, even planting a bright green sign out front. It is a practice that flies in the face of the long-held convention that the best way to protect battered women is to keep the shelters hidden.

St. Jude House is not the only shelter to take that step. Across the country, from Alaska to Michigan, Pennsylvania to Missouri, Wisconsin to Kentucky, a small but growing number are either actively identifying their buildings or simply letting their addresses become known. Some are choosing sites that are in the center of town or on well-traveled streets and even inviting people into the shelters for domestic violence workshops.

Shelter directors in these facilities say that bringing shelters out in the open helps make communities more aware of the problem of domestic violence, makes it easier for abused women to find out about the shelter and get to it, helps shelters raise money and in some cases nets them the increased cooperation of hospitals and town leaders. But there is also an underlying philosophical reason.

"We always said that a woman should not have to hide out," said Susan McGee, the executive director of Domestic Violence Project/SAFE House in Ann Arbor, Mich., which moved to a highly visible downtown location two years ago after 15 years in a hidden site on a rural road. "By hiding away and by insisting the battered woman hide away, we were reinforcing the idea that they had done something shameful, that they had done something wrong, and the community wasn't responsible."

The movement toward open shelters is highly controversial among advocates for victims of domestic violence. Some believe that the philosophical sentiment is a naive ideal that is bound to put women and children in more jeopardy than an anonymous shelter would. They say the only way that women in an open shelter can feel safe is if accused abusive husbands and boyfriends are arrested immediately, and -- as is seldom the case -- held without bond.

"You're asking people to drive through and shoot at the building, throw Molotov cocktails at the building, drive into the building," said Gloria Lowe-Walker, the executive director of the Gary Commission for Women, which runs the Rainbow Shelter in Gary, Ind., about 10 miles from Crown Point. "Are you willing to put yourself and others at risk based on a philosophical statement? You're talking rational, logical ideas for a person who's acting irrationally and illogically."

In many cities and towns, the location of the battered women's shelter is kept so secret that cab drivers have agreed not to take anyone to the address without calling first. Women are told never to reveal where the shelter is. No location, especially in small towns, is ever completely secret -- one Florida shelter received a bomb threat from a husband who said he knew its location because he had lived there as a child with his abused mother -- but some shelters move as soon as the staff thinks too many people know where it is.

In New York, state regulations prohibit shelters from publicizing their addresses. In Georgia, it is a misdemeanor to knowingly disclose the location of a battered women's shelter.

"If the water company is going to change representatives, they have to let us know or we will not let them in," Ms. Lowe-Walker said. "We don't just let a police officer in if we don't know who it is. Police officers batter their wives, too."

At the same time, the movement for open shelters has been springing up, one offshoot of an increasingly vocal advocacy community for victims of spousal abuse, whose members may disagree on the shelter issue but agree that more should be done to punish abusers. With Justice Department figures showing more than half a million incidents a year in which women are physically abused by a husband or boyfriend, advocates have pressured state and county governments into toughening sentences for spousal abuse, raising limits on bail and requiring hospitals to report suspected abuse.

"Stereotypes remain about battered women, that the woman did bring it on herself, rather than asking the real question, which is, why hasn't the community done more to help," said Marissa Ghez, associate director of the Family Violence Prevention Fund, a national advocacy organization that, like its counterparts, has not taken a position on whether shelters should disclose their locations. "The idea is that if you hide the location of domestic violence victims, you're ultimately helping the problem to flourish. But certainly you're taking a greater security risk. The case in Indiana is the most horrific domestic violence case involving a shelter that I think I've heard."

In Crown Point, employees and women at the shelter were devastated by the rape, and terrified by what they believe has been continued harassment of shelter staff members by the accused rapist after his arrest and release on $5,000 bail.

Linda S. Baechle, the executive director of St. Jude House, said that rocks had been thrown at her bedroom window in the middle of the night, another employee had received a threatening message on her home answering machine, and the rape victim had received a threatening note made with cut-out letters. Ms. Baechle and others complained and the man was arrested on additional charges and bond was greatly increased. He remains in custody.

Still, Ms. Baechle resolutely defends the decision not to hide St. Jude House's location.

"I don't feel that's why this happened to us," Ms. Baechle said. "This could happen whether we publish our address or don't publish. I think it's time women don't have to hide. It's a calculated risk, but shelters live with risk on a daily basis."

Ms. Baechle said St. Jude House has paid tremendous attention to security since it opened in November 1995, the only shelter in Crown Point.

The building, a large beige ranch house with blue shutters, white columns and golden daisies out front, is equipped with a $50,000 security system, including bullet-proof glass, security cameras, a "safe room" where women can be hidden in case of emergency and several fire-proofed walls to keep women and children safe from firebombs. There is also a hidden garage and a high, opaque fence around the playground.

"It influences everything we do, that we have our location published," Ms. Baechle said. "When we have the carpets cleaned, it can't be the kind where they plug in outside and stretch a long cord inside, leaving the door open."

Since the rape, St. Jude House has stationed an off-duty police officer at the shelter at night.

"I know it's still a safe place," said one woman who has been staying at St. Jude House with her children. "There is no 100 percent guarantee any place you go. The women are aware that it could happen at any time. It's happened where they live. But they still feel safer here than they do at home."

Many of the shelters that do not hide their locations, including ones in Pittsburgh, Louisville, Ky., and Ann Arbor, make a point of having tighter security than confidential shelters, and some directors said they would advise shelters to go public only if they could afford that. Many have intentionally moved to high-profile spots that tend to be closer to police stations. Some say public shelters can be a psychological deterrent.

"We really feel batterers have a cat-and-mouse approach," said Susan L. Else, the president of Hope House in Independence, Mo., which went public with its address when it moved to a new building two years ago. "If they feel women are hiding from them, they are more likely to try to find them."

And some occasionally use their public profile to turn the tables on an abusive husband or boyfriend. Staff members at the shelter in Ann Arbor sometimes go outside in a group to confront a man who shows up and refuses to leave. A phalanx of shelter employees even escorted a woman back to her house to get children away from an abusive man. And in Oshkosh, Wis., a shelter director, Eileen Connolly-Keesler, said, "We actually tell the women if they need to meet with their batterers, to do it here where we have people watching."

Directors of open shelters say they have found other benefits. St. Jude House, a 30-bed shelter where women can stay for up to 45 days at a time, allows women who are not staying there into counseling sessions and support groups.

The Ann Arbor shelter has doubled its fund-raising since it moved to the new building. And, directors of these shelters say, more women show up on the doorstep, instead of waiting for police or someone at a hospital to take them there.

One woman who stayed at the shelter in Ann Arbor, both when it was a secret hideaway and at the new building, said there were advantages and disadvantages to both locations.

"I did feel secure at the old shelter because it was so secluded," said the woman, who has been on her own with her children for about a year. "I thought 'He would never find this.' The new SAFE House is directly behind the sheriff's office, so I thought, 'He would have to be real daring to come with the police right there.' "

On balance, though, the woman said the new shelter made it easier for her to carry on with her life.

"At the old shelter, I wasn't working because you couldn't get transportation," she said. "They wouldn't let us order out pizza or use a cab. The new one, you're right on the bus route. It's easier to go about your everyday schedule. I had to start all over and that was enough."