Grand Island shelter offers more than housing help

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) - Hope Harbor is celebrating 25 years of providing those in need “a shelter from the storm.”

Liz Mayfield, Hope Harbor executive director, said thousands of people have been served by the organization since it was incorporated in 1994. Hope Harbor formed under its original name, The Community Humanitarian Center, as a program offered by the Ministerial Association.

“They understood there was a big need with families who were homeless, so they started a hotel/motel voucher program,” Mayfield told The Grand Island Independent . “Men were taken care of at The Salvation Army, but they were seeing more and more families. They started with the voucher program first and then they bought their first shelter a year after that (in 1995), with a residential house on 10th Street that they converted into a multi-room shelter.”

The Community Humanitarian Center operated the three-story shelter at 120 W. 10th St. until it moved to its current location, the site of the former St. Mary’s Convent at 610 W. Division St., in 2004. At that time, it leased the building, but Mayfield said Hope Harbor now owns the building. It was also at that time that the organization changed its name to Hope Harbor.

In 2010, she said, Hope Harbor expanded its programming to where it now has a 78-bed transitional shelter and a 26-bed emergency shelter. Its programming also includes life skills classes for transitional shelter clients.

“I think one of the most important things we provide is case management,” Mayfield said. “We have that one-to-one ability and residents have an advocate in their corner from day one. They are a person who can help guide them, put together a plan that meets their goals and work toward housing and/or employment if they need it. Beyond that, we offer life skills classes, too.”

While Hope Harbor offers temporary housing for up to nine months to those in need, she said people who are not homeless can still take advantage of the organization’s services.

“Even if people aren’t experiencing homelessness and don’t need shelter, they can still come to Hope Harbor and get help with food boxes, gas vouchers, formula, diapers or whatever they need,” Mayfield said. “We can help them or tell them where to get help.”

Hope Harbor also provides temporary housing for people who may have been displaced due to natural disasters. This past spring, the organization provided shelter to a Wood River family who had been displaced due to flooding.

In 2015, Hope Harbor launched its Hope Expanding Capital Campaign to purchase an adjacent building for its service center and to renovate the shelter to expand the number of beds in both the emergency and transitional shelters. The campaign raised a total of $1.9 million. The service center was renovated and completed in 2016, while the renovations to the emergency and transitional shelters were completed in 2017.

Mayfield said the service center, originally located in the Hope Harbor shelter, housed the organization’s offices, case management, education classes for residents and was where donations were accepted. Once the service center was completed and those spaces moved, the space was used to add additional rooms at the shelter to serve more individuals.

When she started work at Hope Harbor in 2014, Mayfield said, she didn’t realize how many homeless families with kids there were at the shelter. In the organization’s 25 years, it has seen an increase in “the working poor” and not knowing who is homeless and who isn’t has created a challenge for Hope Harbor.

“I think there is still a stigma,” she said. “It is really hard for people to ask for help, so sometimes when people are in certain situations they think they might just temporarily stay in their car or be in a tent for a little bit and be fine. But a lot of times that turns into something long-term. We want people to know that we are here to help them.”

Mayfield said even though Hope Harbor serves people when they are down, it has seen a number of success stories in its 25 years. Successes include residents who learn to budget or open a savings account for the first time. Others have celebrated after moving into their own housing.

Mayfield remembers seeing one female client who was excited to sign her first lease as she had never signed one before.

“She had never ever signed a lease before. She had always lived with her husband or with other people,” she said. “That was the first thing she had ever signed on her own, so she was super pumped and excited to do something on her own. We sometimes take for granted how big of a deal that is.”

Mayfield said that even when people leave Hope Harbor, its “door is always open” in case they need help in the future.

“They can always call,” she said. “A lot of them form really good relationships with their case manager and they are able to help them.”

In looking to the future and another 25 years, Mayfield said Hope Harbor has a number of things it would like to address. The organization writes a strategic plan every three year, establishing its goals.

“Right now, we are working on a strategic plan to make transportation a little easier for our residents and to look at childhood intervention for kids who are at our shelter,” she said.

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Information from: The Grand Island Independent, http://www.theindependent.com