Eight weeks into the shelter's existence, six families have already stabilized enough to move into places of their own.
DAYTONA BEACH — Open for just two months, the new Hope Place family shelter is already proving to be the difference between catastrophe and a chance to live a happy, stable life.
The first couple to move into the shelter carved out of a 57-year-old elementary school was lugging chronic health problems, a history of living in motels and one low-wage, part-time job to support them and their two children.
A young homeless couple with two toddlers showed up the day after the mother gave birth to their third child. A single father who had been living in a car for the past year with his 8-year-old daughter has also taken refuge at the new shelter north of LPGA Boulevard off Derbyshire Road.
They're some of the pioneers of the comprehensive assistance center that's been six years in the making. More than 100 people have moved in so far, getting close to the halfway point of the 250 or so who will soon be living there on any given day.
"It's going really well," said Buck James, the shelter's executive director. "We're just adding families until we get to capacity."
If not for Hope Place, James has no idea where those families in crisis would have landed. Now eight weeks into the shelter's existence, six families have already stabilized enough to move into places of their own.
"It's working exactly as we hoped it would," said James, who's also executive director of the shelter's parent organization, Halifax Urban Ministries.
Other shelter residents are also heading toward independent living, securing jobs and paying a small amount of rent to stay in one of the complex's nine apartments that are much larger and better equipped than the rest of the emergency housing units there. Three Daytona State College students who needed a roof over their heads for a while have also been housed.
"We're getting some good outcomes," said Anne Evans, chairman of the Halifax Urban Ministries board. "We had a job fair at the shelter last weekend, and several people found jobs. We'll do everything and anything to make sure people find a job."
Hope Place is run and owned by Halifax Urban Ministries, and it's a dramatic expansion and improvement over the nonprofit agency's now re-purposed family shelter. Until last month, Halifax Urban Ministries had run a family shelter for more than 10 years in a small, aging complex one block off of Ridgewood Avenue in downtown Daytona Beach.
The families living in that former family shelter were relocated to Hope Place a few weeks ago. Halifax Urban Ministries is going to continue using those downtown buildings near North Street for homeless veterans and possibly people living on the streets who have serious medical problems. The agency's leaders are hopeful that next month they'll be accepted into a federal grant program that will help them assist veterans.
The nonprofit will also continue to offer free meals, clothes, showers, washing machines and mail service at the downtown site.
The old family shelter had 96 beds, a third of the 300 at Hope Place. The new 55,000-square-foot assistance center also has several new amenities: onsite childcare for kids up to age 12; plenty of outdoor space for kids to play on the 14.5-acre property; a security gate encircling the complex of one-story buildings; a new library building slated to open by the end of the year and on-site counseling for proper parenting, anger management and mental health issues.
With kids out of school for the summer, shelter staff is entertaining them with fun things to do including painting a wall mural. Some children are also being connected with low-cost summer camps.
The refuge from the streets has nine fully furnished and equipped apartments, 32 beds in dorm-style rooms for teenagers and young 20-somethings on their own, and 232 emergency shelter beds. There is an employee-run cafeteria where residents can get three free meals per day, laundry room with washers and dryers available for no charge, a playroom for small kids, a study room, communal living room, and for those in the emergency units communal bathrooms and showers. There's also a quiet room for praying or just thinking somewhere private.
The offerings at Hope Place, which is staffed around the clock, were purposely designed to be comprehensive.
"That's the only way this is going to work," Evans said.
A $3.5 million grant from the county government as well as donations from other local governments and private benefactors made the 15-month transformation of the long-vacant Hurst Elementary School possible. The county also donated the land and buildings after buying the property from the school district for $200,000.
Vital help to start the project, keep it moving and push it across the finish line also came from local leaders such as Forough Hosseini, who founded Food Brings Hope in 2007 to tackle the problems of hunger and homelessness among local students.
"I am very pleased with the progress at Hope Place," said Hosseini, who chairs the Daytona State College Board of Trustees and is a member of the United Way Foundation Board. "We have already helped many families and youth. Families are moving into the shelter and the programs instituted by HUM start helping them immediately. A few of our adults and youth have already attained jobs. Hope Place is functioning as well or better than we had hoped. The success of Hope Place will be felt by our entire county."