Funding cut for homeless shelter
<p>Bambi Waugh watches television as she eats dinner at the Samaritan House in Kalispell on Tuesday. Waugh has been at the Samaritan House for five days and had a job interview on Wednesday. (Aaric Bryan/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
<p>Charlotte Diane Armstrong plays Mahjongg in her room at the Samaritan House in Kalispell on Tuesday. Armstrong has been living at the house for about two months but will be moving to Langston's Adult Foster Home at the beginning of November. (Aaric Bryan/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Federal housing money the Samaritan House has relied on for 14 years was abruptly cut this year, leaving the Kalispell homeless shelter scrambling to find additional funding as it braces for winter.
Samaritan House Executive Director Chris Krager said the shelter was among nearly a dozen facilities in Montana that lost their transitional housing appropriation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“It was an arbitrary, sudden cut with no warning,” Krager said.
The loss of the $56,624 grant is roughly 11 to 12 percent of Samaritan House’s annual budget of about $500,000. Shelter funding is split fairly evenly among four main sources: grants, apartment rent, routine donations and fundraising.
“We’re trying not to reduce services or staff, but we’re already running at bare bone,” Krager said.
The shelter’s staff of 13 includes seven full-time and six part-time employees, plus about 20 volunteers.
The 40 beds at the shelter typically are full every night, he said. So are the transitional housing units and apartments.
Samaritan House serves approximately 1,350 local homeless people every year, sheltering around 78 people every night. Programs at Samaritan House have excellent outcomes, Krager said, with 86 percent of the people served at the facility no longer homeless when they move on from the shelter, compared to 72 percent as a national standard for other homeless programs.
Krager sent a letter to shelter supporters and local news media outlets last week explaining the funding crisis. Even if additional grant funding is secured it won’t be available until mid-2017.
“The Montana winter is fast approaching and the number of people we serve will quickly escalate because of this,” Krager noted in the letter.
The initial response has been good, he added. Many people have stepped up to provide essentials such as paper towels and toilet paper.
Earlier this week the Whitefish Community Foundation donated $20,000 to help with the gap funding. The foundation board opted to issue a $5,000 emergency grant and then appealed to its donor-advised funds and raised another $15,000 for Samaritan House, according to foundation Executive Director Linda Engh-Grady.
Krager said he wants to use the Whitefish Community Foundation’s support as an example to encourage others to consider helping out the homeless shelter in its time of need.
A Samaritan House fundraiser is being planned for late November or early December, he added.
Those who would like to provide assistance to help Samaritan House get through the grant funding gap may send donations to Samaritan House, 124 Ninth Ave. W., Kalispell, MT 59901. Donations also can be made online at samaritanhousemt.com or on the blog, homelessintheflathead.com
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.