Shelter forced to cut services

The House of Charity will suspend its overnight accommodations for 108 homeless men this summer for lack of funding.

The shelter, run by Catholic Charities, will continue to offer other services, including lunch, counseling and a medical clinic during daytime hours, but will suspend its sleeping program for at least July and August, said associate director Gene DiRe.

Catholic Charities is trying to find alternative housing for a handful of the most elderly and ill residents of the shelter, 32 W. Pacific Ave.

“We are working with other social service agencies to get the folks who are very vulnerable into something,” DiRe said.

The House of Charity has provided winter accommodations for homeless men for more than half a century. In 2007, it began keeping its sleeping program open through the summer months at a cost of about $20,000 a month.

Keeping the program running year-round was well-received by Spokane police and the downtown business community because it helps keep homeless men – many of them with mental illnesses or substance abuse problems – off the streets.

House of Charity’s beds most often are filled to capacity, even in the summer. However, funding has been difficult and the summer program was threatened with closure in 2009.

As it turned out, the House of Charity remained open, but Catholic Charities was left with a deficit when expected funding did not materialize.

Last year, the shelter remained open thanks to state Homelessness Housing and Assistance Act funding administered through Spokane County, as well as a special private fundraising drive at the Catholic Charities Gala.

This year, Catholic Charities asked the city for $324,000 in funding under the act, but learned this month that it would receive only about $83,000, which was designated for St. Margaret’s Shelter for homeless women and their children.

“We didn’t get the word in time for the gala,” DiRe said.

However, Catholic Charities has since received a $10,000 grant from Safeco, which will allow House of Charity to reopen its dormitories a couple of weeks earlier than expected.

The shelter’s overnight program will reopen sometime in September, depending on how much can be raised in private donations, DiRe said.

In a letter advising Mayor Mary Verner and police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick of the summer closure, Catholic Charities director Robert McCann said, “decisions like these weigh very heavily on our hearts.”

McCann said he hoped “future funding decisions will have better news for the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable of our community.”