LANSING — As one homeless shelter prepares to fully shut down, another is days away from opening and welcoming the other’s guests, fully intent on seamlessly filling the gap for the city’s homeless population.
Shelbi Frayer said she was working with Holy Cross Services’ New Hope Community Center, 430 N. Larch St., when she learned insurmountable financial challenges would shut it down.
“The thought of just losing a shelter wasn’t going to work,” she said.
She decided to take matters in her own hands, creating The Nest, which will soon open a 56-bed facility of about a dozen bedrooms prioritizing populations often overlooked by shelter systems, including veterans, single fathers and families with teens.
The Nest will host a public housewarming event at its new and newly-renovated shelter, 332 Townsend St., from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, just days before it begins welcoming homeless folks from New Hope’s shelter, along with some of its staff members and any other first participants on May 4.
“As soon as this is done, we’re making the move,” said Frayer, providing an April 23 tour of the Townsend Street building still showing obvious signs of ongoing renovations. “We’ll close that building, and it will just be this building.
“There’s still so much that has to be done … I haven’t been able to really enjoy that we made it. It has taken so many people and amazing donors to come forward and just care enough about this issue, to donate their time or their money to help this new reality. We’re very thankful. It doesn’t seem like its real yet. So pinch me, pinch me in a couple of weeks.”
Holy Cross Services did not respond to requests for comment.
The Nest sits across from the Veterans Memorial Court Building on Kalamazoo Street, which can help with vital documents, and a block over from the new City Rescue Mission shelter. There’s also easy access to Reutter Park, the downtown library and bus services.
The Nest aspires to serve hundreds of individuals a day, through its day center and resource hub, providing meals and services such as housing support, medical care, mail, laundry and more.
Residents could stay there for months and even a couple of years if they’re veterans, but there is no real time limit and Frayer is expecting shorter stays “depending on what they need to kind of get on their way.”
The new shelter will offer showers, laundry and food for even the unhoused people visiting from the homeless camps they may prefer. And any homeless person in the city should be able to visit its day center for case management, help with finding jobs and housing, and getting a driver’s license.
“Another big service for us is mail,” Frayer said. “We do mail for everybody including City Rescue Mission participants and ours. Anybody that needs a mailing address can use this location. We end up doing mail for several hundred people.”
The Nest, she said, received a loan from a private donor for the $1.3 million purchase of the building previously home to the Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association. Renovations amounted to $800,000 to $900,000 in improvements.
Operating The Nest will cost about $1.2 million annually.
“This was a beautiful office building that was about 20 years old,” Frayer said. “It really wasn’t set up for overnight guests. It was set up for offices, so we had to add a lot of bathrooms, showers, things like that … amenities that people can use.”
Those attending the April 29 event can tour the facility, meet The Nest’s team and see how the space was “intentionally designed to create a welcoming environment that prioritizes dignity and long-term progress for the Lansing region’s homeless population,” according to its press release.
The Nest further said in its release that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development shows “on any given night, more than 850 individuals are experiencing homelessness in Ingham County.”
The Nest is currently accepting contributions to expand access and support day-to-day operations.Community members interested in supporting The Nest can learn more or make a gift at thelansingnest.org/donate.
Contact editor Susan Vela at svela@lsj.com or 248-873-7044. Follow her on Twitter @susanvela.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: As one homeless shelter shuts down in Lansing, another prepares to open
Reporting by Susan Vela, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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