by:DONNA C. EARNEST EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Hope House, a day shelter for homeless people living in the downtown neighborhood, is celebrating it’s 15th birthday on Sunday, Oct. 28, from 1-4 p.m. with free food and games. Established by Holy Cross Episcopal Church in 2004, it is located at 762 Austin Place, behind the McAdoo Hotel on Texas Avenue.
Open Monday-Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., Hope House provides two major groups of services, daily support needs for life on the streets and assisting with placement into housing.
Five days a week our Friends have an air-conditioned/ heated place to enjoy coffee or a cold drink of water, take a shower, shave, brush their teeth, do their laundry, receive mail, access telephone service, get ice from the ice machine, and have a snack or meal when provided. There is a small fleet of bicycles available to be borrowed to attend classes, meetings, or doctor appointments.
A caseworker assists with applications for Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, Social Security, Social Security Disability, HUD Section 811, free prescriptions, doctor and dental appointments, and also to help those in need of IDs, birth certificates, social security cards, etc.
Nova’s Heart, a non-profit animal assistance agency, has an office in Hope House and provides food, vaccinations, and minor medical supplies along with free neuter and spay for our Friends’ pets. Dr. Killian, a certified Veterinarian, comes once a week to administer rabies vaccinations to the animals in need.
Twice each month St. Luke’s Episcopal Mobile Medical Ministry comes to offer medical care, providing free preventive health screenings, basic health services, health education and medical referrals.
Volunteers and churches provide hot meals and sack lunches, donations of clothing and other personal hygiene and living items, plus much more including furnishing the back yard with picnic tables and a serving table.
All homeless people have one thing in common: each has suffered some kind of severe traumatic event and did not have the life skills or healthy family support system to pull through it. We work with our Friends to help them achieve a better life. Having your own domicile consists of several steps and those steps our Friends don’t have the skills to navigate. We walk this process with them by first filing for appropriate assistance, vetting for acceptance into housing, providing a new-domicile start-up kit (dishes, cleaning supplies, etc.), and then providing on-going casework as well as training classes to enable them to become self-sufficient and remain off the street.
Hope House established Frontline, a consortium of approximately eight non-profit agencies including twenty collegues who provide services for our homeless population. Monthly the group meets to share information, provide each other’s facilities with support, and strengthen Shreveport’s services to those in need, including a shared schedule of daily free meals and medical services served by the various groups’ distribution locations.
Our Hope House goal is to love and serve the whole person: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
How can you help: Go to Facebook “Hope House” for news and donating, Amazon.com “Hope House Housing Starter Kit”, call the office at 318-220-7650 or email the Executive Director at dearnesthopehouse@yahoo.com for further information on volunteering and donations.
This Article was published in the October 25th Issue of The Inquisitor.