The only men's homeless shelter in the Dayton area is now under new ownership.
Five months ago, St. Vincent De Paul Society leaders announced they couldn’t afford to operate the shelter anymore. Now, the nonprofit Homefull is in charge.
Homefull is prepared to take on the men's shelter, Chief Administrative Officer Tina Weaver said. It has previous experience operating a day shelter, consulting with the city of St. Louis on a men's shelter and work in Springfield.
"It's not the first time we've operated homeless shelters. It's certainly not our first time as partners with all of the people engaged, so we have a history of that," she said. "Homeful itself created an internal transition team. So every time we would have the external meetings, we would then sit down as a team and really problem solve and figure out what's our way of operating."
St. Vincent de Paul handed over operations at the Gettysburg Gateway for Men Emergency Shelter on July 1. This comes after the organization says it faced financial distress from higher expenses, inflation and decreased funding.
The county is working to secure continued funding and make improvements to the system while doing so, said Patrick Bailey, Montgomery County assistant director for human services, planning and development.
Bailey said transitioning the shelter from St. Vincent's to Homefull was a joint effort between the nonprofit, Montgomery County Homeless Solutions, the city of Dayton, County Corp and other local partners.
"We're very appreciative for Homefull stepping up and wanting to lead and wanting to take this initiative on," he said. "This is a community initiative, it's not the county or city or Homefull — it's a collective group of folks that are all working to try to help make an impact in our community."
The shelter now has more than 20 staff members, some of whom were retained from the previous operators. It's a combination of full and part time employees.
"I would say probably about a quarter of those actually were retained from St. Vincent's," Weaver said. "Some moved in, assumed new positions within St. Vincent's, some decided that wasn't what they wanted to do. But we felt like what we did get was a lot of institutional knowledge."
Homefull plans to run the shelter with more comprehensive, on-site services, she said.
“We want Alcoholics Anonymous groups to start. We want narcotics groups to start, housing focus groups, behavioral health counseling," she said. "And there's a lot of those that are outside resources that we we really want them on site.”
With less access to affordable housing, Weaver said they're hoping for better resources in the community as residents in the shelter transition back to independence.
"I certainly believe that creating affordable housing ... is certainly needed and could go a long way in alleviating the numbers of people in shelter or living in poverty one step away from becoming homeless," she said.
Homefull is also starting up a farm on the property to provide residents with hands-on experience growing and distributing healthy food.
"Homefull and farming goes a little ways back and for us. The farm at Gettysburg has always been a beautiful place for us because we say that's how we accidentally became in the food field," Weaver said. "Really it is about tilling up the land right now back to where we started. We used to use raised beds, now we're doing direct seed. There's a green house there, a hoop house that works. We're raising the roof on it and really trying to make sure that it's salvageable and can be thriving."
She said this farm will provide residents at the shelter with enrichment and work that can help in their journey to self-sufficiency.
Bailey said the overall goal is to provide residents with long-term solutions to homelessness.
“It's not just numbers, so it's real people. And that's what it's all about," he said. "It's really about trying to help those people move to finding a home of their own and then becoming self-sufficient, if possible.”
