Racine---Things are said to be going well at a new homeless shelter in Racine.
HOST—an acronym for Homeless Overnight Sanctuary---opened November 1st as a replacement for a downtown church that stopped taking in the homeless during overnight periods.
The new shelter, established by a new non-profit called Segue, is located in a building on Domanik Drive that once housed the offices of Lincoln Lutheran before that non-profit folded. "HOST" shares space in the building with the United Way of Racine County.
Segue co-founder Warren Williams, a pastor at Living Faith Lutheran Church, says HOST is what could be called a low-barrier shelter in that it doesn’t automatically turn away people with substance abuse or mental health issues. "If you come in and you've had a few drinks we're not maybe happy about that but we're not going to toss you out into the cold," Williams said during the recent taping of this Saturday's Community Matters on WGTD.
Admission is "behavior based," Williams went on to explain. "And that's been working very well for us."
In recent weeks, HOST has been hosting between 25 and 30 people, mostly men, but single women and families with children have also been sheltered.
A $40,000 grant from Racine County is covering the new shelter’s rent through the end of March. After that, it’s unclear just what’ll happen to HOST. But the non-profit’s board of directors has been focusing in recent weeks on coming up with a long-term plan.
The Community Matters program will air Saturday at 11:15.
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