Quarterly Shelter Notes: September 2014

As the summer comes to an end, so does our fiscal year here and four years are in the books since we opened the doors of New Hope Shelter & Transitional Housing. Our fourth year has been a challenging and busy time with several high needs residents. It has been an exciting and stressful year filled with both challenges and rewards. We are again looking back at what we’ve done and looking at ways we can improve what we do over the next few years. We are thinking and praying about those who have stayed with us this last year and encouraged by the opportunity to minister to new residents in the upcoming year. We are tying up a lot of loose ends and summer construction projects around here getting ready for winter. The garden has been full and productive and the pantry busier than ever. Things are hectic but productive. Fall is historically our busiest time here at the shelter. We currently have 5 people staying with us; 4 single men and a single woman, with a family of 4 scheduled to check-in tomorrow. We recently had a family check out of one of our transitional housing apartments into a place of their own.
Over the last few years we are seeing an average develop of serving 35-40 residents per year here at the shelter. We have just entered into our 5th year as an Emergency Shelter program. This year we provided 1,791 nights of shelter, just under last years’ 1,848 nights of shelter. ALL TIME we’ve provided 6,886 nights of shelter. This year we served 33 total residents including 20 single men, 2 single women and 5 families comprising 11 people. ALL TIME we have served 142 people total, 68 single men, 20 single women and 19 families (54 people) This year we have received approximately 118 calls from people looking for shelter, just a few more than last years’ 101 (12/13), and the previous years’ 105 (11/12). We consistently receive an average of 8-10 calls per month. We continue to average about 5 residents per night. We have had up to 11 people here at a time this year. We have helped people transitioning from jail, substance abuse rehabilitation centers, hospitals, and probation/parole providing a stable supervised place from which they could find employment and seek housing. We have expanded and maintained a great working relationship with the other service providers in our community to help families find the assistance and resources they need to move forward with stabilizing their lives. This year we have logged over 15,000 miles helping transport residents to doctor appointments, court dates, or even just to the grocery store.
We are so thankful to be able to continue our Case Management program another year with Gene doing an excellent job. This splits the workload and helps our residents get the attention to detail that they need. We are also blessed to welcome Russ as a volunteer resident intern for this year. He is available 24/7, living on the premises, to help address the after-hours needs of the residents. He and Gene collaborate to help organize facility maintenance and grounds keeping duties among the residents. I am excited to have someone on staff here after-hours, it is something that has been on my heart for some time. We’ve continued our Transitional Housing program, signing another year-long lease for 2, 1 bedroom apartments here in town. We have had 8 households representing 12 people in this program and it has been an incredible compliment to our existing 90 day shelter plan, providing our residents that do well in our emergency shelter program the added flexibility of additional time to stabilize their lives. We also utilize these apartments as overflow or for special needs situations when residence in the main shelter isn’t possible. They have hardly been empty since we began in Jan 2012. As always, God’s timing is perfect. Kathy is still the rock holding down our office operations, handling most of the daily shelter needs, maintaining the food pantry database, handling donations, and phone calls, volunteering an incredible 30-40 hours per week for the last 3 years! We wouldn’t know what to do without her and are blessed to have her here with us. Margaret takes over for Kathy three days a week in the afternoons and shares in Friday’s food pantry volunteer rotation. All of our staff and volunteers do a wonderful job accepting and sorting donations, answering the phones, transporting residents to appointments, and volunteering their time in the food pantry to help keeping the shelter running smoothly, I absolutely could not do it without them.
We have again decided not to participate this year in the HUD funded, State run, Emergency Solutions Grant program. We are strongly considering whether or not to apply for the similar State Shelter Subsidy Grant program this fall. We are continuing to feel a strong conflict of interest between the state/federal run grant programs and our shelter mission statement. Most of the issue is that HUD is requiring that we limit the people we serve based on guidelines and requirements that were designed and suited towards an urban population. We find ourselves faced with the situation of denying service to applicants, based on HUD’s definition of homelessness, despite having available beds. If we accept even a dollar from that program, we have to adhere to all their guidelines and stipulations on how we spend EVERY dollar we receive, no matter the funding source. We cannot serve more people with these programs, we can serve less people with more paperwork. A sincere Thank You to those of you who have designated gifts to make up this shortfall.
We are EXCITED to begin a clothing collection/recycling drive where we are accepting any and all donations of clothes no matter the condition. We will box these donations up and when we have stock-piled a sufficient amount we call a shipper and are paid between .07 and .10 per pound for everything we collect. I am excited about this drive as another funding source for the shelter.
Please join with us in praise and prayer about this upcoming years funding. We continue to apply for other state and local grants and trust the Lord to provide for the ministry HE desires. Please keep in prayer our staff, community service volunteers, and our residents as we are presented with the opportunity to help share the Gospel and meet the needs of the families in our area.
THANK YOU to all who have donated time or supplies this past year, no donation is too large or too small. We couldn’t do what we do here without YOUR help. If there is a specific area that you feel led to make a donation towards, whether that’s cleaning supplies, work clothes for the residents, transportation costs, or food, let me know and we’ll make sure it gets used for that purpose. We are truly blessed to be doing HIS work with your help.
In His Service, Micah Dewing -Shelter Director