• Poverello Center
  
• Joseph Residence
  
• Outreach Services
• Valor House
  
  
  

"The Pov" Downtown Ryman Street Shelter

The Poverello Center is a 30 day emergency shelter. Despite capacity for only 70 overnight shelter guests, the Pov routinely sleeps up to 100 homeless individual men and women each and every night, and often in the most inclement weather conditions.  Services provided free of charge in the shelter include: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as access to sack lunches, storage space for personal belongings, computers, phone, mail, bus passes, showers, laundry facilities, clothing, intake and referral services, and an on-site Partnership Health medical clinic. 

The Ryman Street facility is staffed by well trained, professional intake workers and support staff twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There are two intake and referral specialist that conduct intakes throughout the day providing basic case management and referrals for clients and residents. All residents must be checked in by 7:30 p.m.  In order to stay at the shelter, residents must agree to basic rules, including refraining from the use of drugs and alcohol to enter into the facility.  We required that residents complete one chore for their previous night of stay to keep the building clean and running smoothly and to create an environment of accountability and respect.  The shelter beds provide short term, emergency housing, and an interim solution for homeless individuals who are seeking more permanent housing. 

Food Insecurities Programs

The Pov operates Missoula’s primary soup kitchen. We open our doors for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week.  This amounts to over 100,000 meals to Missoula’s hungry and homeless each and every year.  
 
The food is nutritious, tasty, and the bulk of it is provided by donations from the community at large, as well as through collaborations with the Missoula Food Bank, the Montana Food Bank Network, Garden City Harvest, the commodities program, and local restaurants and businesses. 

The Pov also participates with the Missoula Food Bank in the Grocery and Food Rescue Program. Our truck goes out five days a week to collect food from area grocery stores and restaurants and served to the impoverished and homeless, thereby salvaging hundreds of thousands of pounds of usable food from the landfill each year.

For many, the meals at the Poverello are the only hot meal they get each day.  Elderly individuals on fixed incomes, our urban neighbors in low-income housing, the mentally and physically disabled, as well as families living on the fringe depend upon the Pov's Food Insecurity Programs for the nourishment they need.

Homeless Veterans Programs

Between 150,000 and 200,000 veterans of the United States Armed Forces are homeless on any given night, and one-third of homeless men are veterans, including combat veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Nearly 400,000 veterans will experience homelessness during the course of a year.

30% of the Poverello Center’s clients are veterans.

Through a longstanding partnership with the United States Veterans Administration, the Poverello Center offers outreach, case management, supportive services, and housing to homeless veterans throughout Western Montana.  The Pov receives a per diem from the federal government for veterans enrolled in the Homeless Veterans Programs.


Healthcare

Through an on-site collaboration with the Partnership Health Center, the Poverello Center has been delivering healthcare for the homeless in downtown Missoula for ten years. Located inside the Ryman Street shelter, this medical clinic centralizes services for anyone who is homeless – there is never a charge for this care.

Mental Health

Two Case Managers from Western Montana Mental Health Care’s PATH team are on- site daily to meet with homeless individuals living with a mental illness. They provide access to housing, treatment programs, therapy, and many other services. The PATH team works closely with the Poverello Staff to provide the best support for those individuals living with a mental illness.

The Joseph Residence at Maclay Commons

The Joseph Residence has served homeless families with children since 1991.  In 2006, the Poverello Center partnered with the Missoula Housing Authority to build a new housing facility that offers safe housing and associated social services to homeless families who need it most.

Families must be considered homeless and income qualified to move into the Joseph Residence at Maclay Commons. There are eight duplex buildings which include eight 2-bedroom residences and eight 3-bedroom residences and a community center that includes classroom space, office space for  staffing, playground, and daycare.  Families can stay for up to two years, and they benefit from intensive case management, life skills classes, vocational training, financial training, and experience a stable community while working toward independence.

“The Joe”, as it’s called, is a nationally recognized housing program that stops breaks the generational cycle of poverty and homelessness.

Outreach Services

The Homeless Outreach/Transition Team (“HOT Team”) will conduct daily outreach to individuals living on the street or other areas not meant for habitation. This outreach will help connect shelter-resistant individuals to services in the community that they are currently not in contact with, or have never contacted, as well as connect people with opportunities for transportation (through bus tickets), medical care and other efforts.


With the HOT Team we will be making contact with many people who may not know about Partnership Health, or who may qualify for benefits from Veterans Affairs, or Medicare and Medicaid but do not have the skills or resources to access them. Getting individuals connected to these alternate sources of care, or funding of care, could significantly reduce the number of clients seeking aid in emergency rooms, and also reduce the amount of lost funds that are absorbed by hospitals and the larger community.  Not only would this benefit the health of clients, it would decrease the burden on emergency health care providers.

The Salcido Center which has been operating onsite at the Ryman Street Shelter since August 2010, acts as a drop-in day center for chronically homeless men and women.

The Valor House

The Valor House opened in 2005, in collaboration with the Veterans Administration and Missoula Housing Authority, to address the multifaceted needs of one of this nation's largest homeless demographics: Veterans.

The Valor House is a long term transitional housing program that offers 17 single occupancy apartments to Veterans who were previously homeless.  While most transitional housing programs only offer dormitory style living, Valor House is unique in that it offers Veterans a private apartment with a full kitchen and bathroom.  Also, the Valor House provides Veterans with onsite case management, 24-hour staffing, direct connection to local healthcare providers, and referrals to other important social services in our community.  In this way, each Veteran is assisted in his/her transition out of homelessness into stability for a brighter future.  Valor House residents can live in their units up to 24 months.  During their stay at the Valor House, Veterans pay 30% of their income as rent.  After one year in the program, a Veteran is eligible to receive a Housing Choice voucher to secure independent housing in the community.

In addition to the individual apartments, the Valor House facility also provides residents with several common areas including:

• Large kitchen
• Community garden
• 2 Laundry rooms
• 2 TV areas
• 5 Community computers

The Valor House is conveniently located within walking distance to the VA Community-Based Outpatient Clinic, Montana State and VA Vocational Rehabilitation offices, the Office of Public Assistance, supermarkets, a pharmacy, bank, post office, shopping center, and other retail businesses.  The site is also readily accessible to Missoula's public transportation system.