Neighborhood Alliance's shelter expansion accommodates families with children

LORAIN — Lorain County's only family shelter will be expanding. Neighborhood Alliance's Haven Center in South Lorain will be adding 20 additional beds and renovating its layout to better accommodate families with children. The more than $4 million project is the second large undertaking by the nonprofit in as many years, coming on the heels of renovations to turn Elyria's former YMCA building into its Nutrition Kitchen. Currently, the shelter has room for 68 residents, including four family rooms that can sleep up to five, if one is an infant or toddler. Walking down the long corridor with dormitory-style rooms branching off to each side, Roberto E. Toro, director of shelter and emergency services, said they try to keep the spaces as neat and organized as possible. The sections of the dormitories are blocked off with red tape — first the men's portion, then the women's then the four family rooms at the very end. The family rooms are the farthest from the bathrooms, forcing mothers to take toddlers in the midst of potty training all the way down the hall, President and CEO Alicia Foss said. Since the shelter opened in the early 1990s, the average length of stay and the size of families seeking shelter have all increased, Foss said. What used to be a few weeks to get back on their feet now see some residents calling Haven Center home for 45 days or more. And families with children can face even more barriers to housing, bringing some stays up to six months. They've seen families with six or seven children in need of shelter, and subsequently affordable housing, Toro said. That need for space, and if it's combined with any past evictions or convictions, can make finding suitable housing an arduous process. "It's all on a case-by-case basis," Toro said. "None of them are the same … it's just how we go about building that case." He said later, "When you start figuring all that out, that really funnels down to you have 10, 15 families (and) one of them is going to get the house. The other 14, what are we going to do?" There are diversion programs — trying to place families or individuals in options other than the Haven Center or use motel vouchers when the shelter itself is full or a family is too large to safely stay in one of the center's dorm rooms. But those vouchers have cost Neighborhood Alliance more than $1.5 million from 2020 to 2022, Foss said, and off-site case management adds another piece to an already complicated puzzle. The build-out of the dorms will see a J-shaped addition that builds an internal courtyard for children to play in. Currently, children and families have to go through security to go outside to play, which isn't ideal, Foss said, and they've had to get rid of or replace outdoor playthings after it has been vandalized or broken or staff have found drug paraphernalia in it. "We want the kids to be able to play and not worry about those things," Foss said. Families will be able to stay in larger dorms with in-suite bathrooms on the second floor — separated from individuals in the shelter, Foss said. The separation allows families to spend time together in their own space while allowing individuals in shelter some peace from small children running around. "(Currently) If it's a rainy day or something and they're all in there together, that can be a little bit much and it can be stressful for the individuals as well," Foss said. "So separating out the families from the individuals I think will really help calm some of those things down and give people a little bit more breathing room." It will also be easier to quarantine families or individuals in case of COVID-19 or other communicable disease outbreaks, Toro said. The new space will have improved HVAC — as the current shelter has air handlers from the 1990s that do little to circulate stale air in the dorms. It will also have pods for school-age children to do work online, or adults to have virtual doctors appointments with a measure of privacy, Foss said. In addition to the added space for residents, Haven Center staff will have additional space to see clients, store outreach items and house partnering agencies and staff. Neighborhood Alliance put the project out to bid once previously, but those bids came back well over what the nonprofit anticipated, Foss said. While she thought they'd be breaking ground in June, they now have to rebid the project to hopefully get below the $3 million bid in the first round. Neighborhood Alliance originally budgeted about $2.4 million for the addition — and the $3 million didn't include ancillary costs or architectural fees, Foss said. She said they have funds to move around, but it ultimately means pulling cash from another part of the project. The Haven Center needed expanding, but the pandemic brought it to the forefront, Foss said. And, it helped provide some of the revenue streams to get the project started. Neighborhood Alliance received $900,000 from Lorain's American Rescue Plan Act funds and $1.1 million in CARES Act funds from the Lorain County Commissioners. "The need was so great during the pandemic that we couldn't afford to wait," Foss said. "And then there was money during the pandemic that had not been made available to us before … We would have had to raise all that money – instead we went to the state and we went to local governments and talked with everybody about what we wanted to do and there were funding streams that fit what we were trying to do because a lot of it is pandemic related." Foss and Toro hope to see groundbreaking on expansion in early fall — though Foss said it can't come soon enough as until then, families and individuals seeking shelter are stuck in the cramped dorms and long hallways to the bathroom since Haven Center was built. For more information on Neighborhood Alliance and the Haven Center, visit myneighborhoodalliance.org. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.