"The Pov" Downtown Ryman Street Shelter
Building supportive housing has always been the central way in which the Pov has created lasting solutions to homelessness, and the Pov's Ryman Street emergency shelter provides a point of entry for its emergency housing services.
The Ryman Street shelter provides seventy emergency beds, with 24 hour access to shelter and services.
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, case managers, and an on-site Partnership Health medical clinic.
Intake is from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily.
All residents must be checked in by 7:00 p.m. unless prior arrangements have been made. In order to stay at the shelter, residents must abide by basic behavioral rules, including refraining from the use of drugs and alcohol to enter into the facility.
During working hours, Monday through Friday, families can also be referred to the YWCA and the Salvation Army.
The Ryman Street facility is staffed by well trained, professional case workers and support staff twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The shelter beds provide a short term, emergency housing, and an interim solution for homeless individuals who are seeking more permanent housing.
Breaking Barriers Program
The Poverello Center’s Breaking Barriers program provides individualized support services for its clients as needed, in order to create a stable environment and to keep those who were once homeless in housing. This includes access to rental assistance; help navigating the “red tape” often required to obtain public benefits like Medicaid; connections to jobs, employers or employment resources; dedicated case-managers; and customized mental health and substance treatment approaches.
Homeless clients who enter the Breaking Barriers program work closely with Ryman Street Shelter and Salcido Center case managers to determine the barriers to their becoming self sufficient and housed.
The Pov helps homeless individuals meet their vocational goals, obtain the income they need to overcome homelessness and regain their places as contributing members of their communities. We work collaboratively with community agencies and employers to ensure success. Services are highly individualized in order to define meaningful goals, develop effective strategies and action plans, utilize available resources and gain the personalized skills and tools needed to seek and maintain employment.
Anyone desiring to enter the Breaking Barriers program can schedule an intake appointment with staff at the Ryman Street Shelter or Salcido Center.
Food Insecurities Programs
The Pov operates the largest soup kitchen in the State of Montana and the only area soup kitchen serving three squares, breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week. This amounts to 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, wherein food is collected 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.
Rapid Re-Housing for Homeless Families
Homeless families throughout Montana are struggling at rates greater than ever before. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of homelessness, often suffering educational, physical, emotional and developmental setbacks. Exposure to violence, poor living conditions, and lack of quality daycare compound these problems.
Through collaborations with other area nonprofit organization, the Poverello Center provides the only 24 hours, 7 day week intake, assessment and triage for homeless families living on the streets and/or out of their cars.
The Pov’s family support services provide a wide range of critical services including shelter placement; 24 months of service-enriched transitional housing through the Joseph Residence; and children’s programs designed to promote healthy physical, emotional, educational, and social growth.
Staff at the Poverello Center is trained to provide appropriate outreach, referrals, case management, supportive services, and housing for homeless families with children.
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.
In 2008, the Poverello/Parnership Health Clinic provided medical and mental healthcare services hundreds of men, women and children, ranging in age from infancy to those over 85. Common diagnoses include hypertension, diabetes and asthma. Frequently, homeless patients suffer from multiple diagnoses making treatment and care significantly more challenging than for people who are not homeless.
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 24 hour staffing, nursing station, 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.
The Salcido Center
Currently located in the basement of the First Baptist Church at 308 West Pine, the Salcido Center is a daytime drop-in center serving individuals experiencing chronic homelessness, mental illness and/or chemical dependency. The Salcido Center provides as warm, safe respite from the streets; a place where individuals can take care of basic human needs. The Salcido Center is an extension of the Poverello Center’s Ryman Street facility, making some of the supportive services offered at the Pov available to Salcido guests.
The Salcido’s collaborations with other Missoula agencies helps our guests connect with case management, adult education services and chemical dependency resources. By bringing community resources and agency partners into the Salcido center our guests can learn about, meet and connect with services in an environment they are comfortable and familiar with. Collaborations with law enforcement, downtown businesses, and other community service providers allow the Poverello Center to serve our guests with integrity, compassion, and respect
In addition, the Salcido Center, staffed daily with 2 support professionals, is focused on helping the Salcido Drop-in Center guests in a number of ways. Areas of primary focus are vocational resources such as job search assistance, mock interviews and resume assistance; Self care and positive coping skills such as yoga, meditation and breathing exercises; maintaining a community resource guide to ensure staff are prepared to offer referrals to other local agencies and creating a directory of available recovery options and education offered in the Missoula community to help individuals that are interested in recovery.
The Salcido Center provides a “no wrong door” approach, serving all who ask.
The Salcido center commits to treating all members with compassion and understanding. Each person’s journey is unique and individualized; staff at the Salcido respect and focus on the experiences of each person.
The Salcido center promotes consumer-led programs that empower individuals to lead healthy lives as active members of their communities. The Salcido Center focuses on respect, shared responsibility and mutual understanding of what is helpful and needed by each individual guest.
The Salcido Center is named for Forrest Clayton Salcido, a former Poverello client and Navy veteran who experienced homelessness and struggled with chemical dependency. Known to most as Clay, he regularly was unable to utilize the Poverello’s services because he was under the influence of alcohol. He died in December 2008 while sleeping outside. The high school student that was convicted of his murder was sentenced to 100 years in prison.See the Monthly Class Schedule!
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: homeless veterans.
The Valor House provides 17 individual apartment units to previously homeless veterans. Valor is unique in that it offers homeless veterans, in a non-dormitory type setting, onsite case management, 24-hour staffing, and an abundance of local area healthcare providers to help aid veterans as they transition out of homelessness and create stability for the future. The program is considered long-term transitional housing, where qualified residents can live for up to 24 months, and with a minimum 12 month stay. During their stay at Valor, residents pay 30% of their income as rent. After one year in the program, a veteran is eligible to receive a Section 8 housing voucher to attain the housing of their choice.
The Valor House offers residents an individual apartment which includes a bathroom, living room and bedroom. The facility also provides residents with several common areas including:
- Large kitchen
- Community garden
- 2 Laundry rooms
- 2 TV areas
- 1 Indoor recreational area
- 5 Community computers
Valor is conveniently located within walking distance to the VA Community-based Outpatient Medical Clinic, Montana State and VA Vocational Rehabilitation facilities, the Office of Public Assistance, supermarkets, a pharmacy, bank, post office, shopping center, and other retail businesses. The site is also accessible to Missoula's public transportation system.
Site by Small Dog Solutions