Almost every bed is filled every night at three Onondaga County shelters — and demand for them will go up after the holidays, say those who work with the homeless.
“If there is a bed open in the afternoon, it’s filled by that night,” said Ellen Alderich, a case worker at the Salvation Army.
More people seek shelter beds after the holidays, shelter officials say, because they’ve lost the temporary shelter of families or friends willing to share homes during the holiday season or because they try to keep their own families together despite domestic abuse.
“Sometimes people will try to hold it together during the holidays,” said Dotti Barraco-Hetnar, a program administrator at Vera House, which offers shelter for women and children to escape domestic abuse.
The homeless shelters include the Salvation Army, the Rescue Mission and Vera House. To give shelter services, all three shelters depend on payments from the count, as well as private donations. All three shelters have increased their number of beds and worked to help people find more permanent living situations, officials say. But there are still more people than beds.
At the Salvation Army, a family shelter can house about 55 people and the Army also has a separate women’s shelter. In April 2009, the Salvation Army converted office space into room for beds to double its size. And to allow for more people to stay, small children often share beds with their mothers. The Army also has rooms for families with teenage sons, both a mother and a father, or single fathers.
But, say Army officials, they fill up quickly. “We can’t take them all in,” said case worker Alderich.
At the Rescue Mission, the shelter has 120 beds for single men. In the past 13 years, the Mission has grown by 72 beds. And this year, it has seen a 19 percent increase in demand for service, say Mission officials.
Like the other shelters, the Mission also offers help for its beneficiaries to find permanent homes. “Emergency shelter is supposed to be just that. If you stay longer, it’s not helping people long term,” Paul LaDolce, a representative from the Rescue Mission, said. “We don’t want to see people trapped in homelessness.”
Barraco-Hetnar of Vera House agreed. “We don’t like to see people need our service,” she said. Vera House turned offices in one of their shelters into rooms for people to stay last year.
(Heather Duggan is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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