Shelter Programs
Our new facility, located at 216 W. Phoenix
will be open year round during the day to
offer showers, laundry, phone and mail service and treatment, educational and
job training assistance to homeless men and women. FSS firmly believes in the “no
wrong door concept” and we work with many
collaborators to coordinate referrals to anyone needing any additional
assistance that we cannot directly provide. Flagstaff Family Food Center will be
delivering a hot meal to us, 7 days week, to serve to our shelter clients.
Catholic Charities will provide case management and outreach to homeless
individuals with serious mental illness. The Guidance Center will provide
transportation from the shelter to the ITU in appropriate cases.
Social Security Administration will be
available regularly to assist individuals to apply for benefits and to obtain
copies of lost ID cards. We are in the process of establishing many more
agreements with several agencies to bring their services on site. NAU nursing
students may be providing health checks and psychiatric screenings, Literacy
Volunteers may conduct reading classes and more. BothHands may perform budget
workshops and we are working with the Sunnyside one stop to develop job training
assessments and job hunting / interviewing / resume writing workshops.
We will be providing evening Cognitive
Behavioral programming for persons with addiction disorders and plan to resume
AA/NA/CMA meetings on site
In addition we have offered to be the site of a
proposed Homeless Court through the City Court of Flagstaff and Board Chair
Wendy White has offered to coordinate the service providers needed to make such
a court successful. She will also be working on establishing a pro bono program
using local lawyers to provide legal representation for the Homeless Court
program.
For overnight shelter we will open on October 18 and remain
open into April. The shelter has capacity for 26 to 30 men.
Twenty beds
will be emergency shelter beds and will allow for people to stay up to 45 days
The remainder of the available beds will be ‘transitional beds’ for men who are
working, staying sober and following a case management plan to move out of
homelessness and into stable housing. They will have up to 90 days of
shelter. Both transitional and emergency clients are subjected to a $5 a day
copay. However, the copay is flexible,
in that if an individual is actively trying to improve their circumstances,
they will not be kicked out based on non-payment or inability to pay. The copay
requirement is specifically directed at the 40% percent of our homeless
community members (HCM) who are not severely disabled and are in the work
force-or who are IMMEDIATELY able to rejoin the workforce. FSS also requires its
HCM to maintain a 50% portion of their income for savings. A client has used a
day of shelter when they spend the night with us, or when they make a
reservation and do not show up.
