Columbus shelters to get upgrades with grant money
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Six emergency shelters across Columbus are getting a big chunk of grant money from the city for important repairs and upgrades.
Columbus City Councilmember Melissa Green said that as the housing crisis worsens across central Ohio, this type of funding will be critical to help keep up operations at emergency shelters.
"Making sure that we don't just have places for emergency shelter, but that those places are safe and functional for the residents that are going to be using them is incredibly, incredibly important," Green said.
Almost $1.5 million from the city of Columbus is going to support six emergency shelters.
"We're seeing a new wave of people who are impoverished. You see upper middle class becoming middle class, middle class becoming impoverished, impoverished becoming homeless," The Open Shelter Director of Guest Services Sarah Hatchard said.
The Open Shelter is a drop-in shelter for people who are experiencing homelessness.
When the shelter moved to its location on Parsons Avenue, it did not have a commercial kitchen. Now, with the help of the grant money, that is about to change.
"We were so excited to get it because it's going to just open up so many doors for The Open Shelter," Hatchard said. "It's going to allow us to feed our folks every single day instead of just a few times a month. And it's going to give us this brand-new, state-of-the-art facility where the sky's the limit."
For Community Development for All People, the money is going to help keep the building up to date with a growing demand.
"We've seen a 40% increase in the number of people who come to our All People’s Fresh Market," Community Development for All People Executive Director Michael Premo said. "We're serving over 400 families a day. We're seeing close to 200 families a day here at the Free Store."
The money will help them fix the floors, install more energy-efficient lighting, and clean out air ducts.
"We probably see somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 people a year coming through this building, and it puts a lot of wear and tear on the floors and on the fixtures and everything like that," Premo said.
The money is helping keep these shelters open and running.
"Part of our job is just being able to have that space for people to just come, just be, feel safe and also feel like they exist and matter in the world because they do," Hatchard said.
The Open Shelter hopes to have the kitchen finished before the end of this year.
The other four emergency shelters receiving money are Young Women’s Christian Association, Young Men’s Christian Association of Central Ohio, Huckleberry House Inc., and Southeast Inc.