Church at the Park, the nonprofit that operates the Village of Hope homeless micro shelter site in Salem, plans to add beds and services, according to the Salem Reporter. The expansion aims to serve people who are experiencing homelessness and are 55 and older.
People 50 or older are the fastest growing group of those experiencing homelessness in the US, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
We learn more about the Salem expansion from DJ Vincent, the founding pastor and CEO of Church at the Park.
Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. For almost 20 years now, a nonprofit called Church at the Park has provided shelter and services to people experiencing homelessness in the Salem area. Now, the group has plans to enlarge one of its micro shelter communities with a particular focus on residents over the age of 55. DJ Vincent is the founding pastor and CEO of this nonprofit. He joins us now to talk about their plans. It’s good to have you on the show.
DJ Vincent: It’s great to be here today, Dave.
Miller: So as I noted, this nonprofit has been around for a number of years now, something like 20 years. Can you describe your basic model?
Vincent: We believe that becoming unhoused starts with a break in a relationship and the trauma involved in that. So the path to health and healing is also going to involve a relationship. We spend a lot of time building trust with people through our outreach. We think that people need safety to move to health and stability. So that happens in our micro shelter communities. And then we believe there should really be a place for everyone to thrive in our community, and that’s stable and supported housing.
Miller: How did you decide to focus, for this expansion, on people 55 and over?
Vincent: As we looked at the numbers from 2023 at our Village of Hope for adults – we served over 200 folks there, and over half of them had mobility issues and were over 55 years of age. That told us that our numbers in Salem were matching some of the increases that we see and study nationally. And that was the area we needed to focus next: expanding capacity.
Miller: I’m just curious what your waitlist is like and what the demographics of the waitlist are like?
Vincent: Sadly, I checked in, for this interview, on our waitlist. And with all of our programs, safe parking, the family site, young adults, it’s over 1,000 people who would like to be served and supported through a micro shelter community. Again, of the adults only, more than half of those sitting on the waitlist are over 55 years of age.
Miller: My understanding is that one of your initial ideas here was to just start up a new site. Why did you end up choosing instead to expand an existing one?
Vincent: We have to think about sustainability, and where continued support is going to come. There was a lot of philanthropy and energy around a new site dedicated to those over 55. But the reality is we can serve people just as effectively, but in a more cost effective way, by expanding those beds on our existing site.
Miller: Is designing for older residents who, as you mentioned, may have mobility issues, different from designing a shelter community for the general population?
Vincent: When we got the opportunity to work with a private landowner on our current Village of Hope site, we didn’t really worry about the fact that it was a gravel lot and people would need to walk over that gravel lot to go to their shelter. But when someone is in a wheelchair or pushing a walker, then those paths should really be paved. And that’s what we’re looking at with some of the resources for this improvement and expansion project.
Miller: So that is a question of the built environment. What about the human environment and services in particular? Will you be providing different kinds or levels of service going forward?
Vincent: Yeah, I’m really proud of our team as we’ve continued to expand what support services look like. When someone checks in with us, they get assigned a case manager, a peer support specialist on our site. We have a chaplaincy program that brings other volunteers and community resources in. But then we also have offices onsite where partner agencies can set up shop multiple days a week. And one of the things we’re looking at with the expansion is more of those offices for community partners to come and have office hours, especially folks like senior and disability services.
Miller: What have you learned over the years about the best way to permanently get people out of homelessness?
Vincent: For every person, that road to housing, health, and sobriety, starts with safety. So our sites have to be this supported and calm environment, where they know what to expect. There’s always staff who are available to support them. The expectations of the site are clear and reinforced and consistent on a daily basis.
And then we talk about not doing things to people, for people, but always with [people]. So we want, consistently, individuals to be willing to come alongside people, go to appointments, help them fill out paperwork, help them go and make those housing connections.
Miller: How do you measure success then?
Vincent: It starts with every person on our site feeling like they’re seen and valued. But then it moves into actual resource connections. And then the gold standard of what we’re looking for is every person permanently housed in a supportive environment.
Miller: Based on that metric, how are you doing?
Vincent: We are so encouraged that the folks, the participants who come and spend time with us, their level of hope is empirically increasing. We have consistently dozens of resources on site. Over 50% of the people that we’re getting to shelter are moving to positive destinations and permanent housing.
Miller: What’s a positive destination?
Vincent: If someone’s actually going into a different transitional housing program or moving into recovery, we call that a positive destination versus signing a lease or moving into their own home.
Miller: What does it mean to call this a church?
Vincent: For us, we believe that the faith community exists to support people in a holistic way. And so we are anchored in these values of what it means to follow Christ in mercy and compassion. We think that needs to be in action as well as words and nobody needs to profess faith to be served by us. But we want to be able to support people in every aspect of their life.
Miller: How much is this expansion going to cost, just in terms of the beefing up of the site itself?
Vincent: It’s four components. So we’re investing in actual new shelters and expanded beds. We want there to be more shower and bathroom access. We’re looking at revamping our office and common cafeteria areas. And then, like we talked [about], the mobility of the site with new sidewalks really needs to improve. So when it’s all said and done, we believe it’ll be under a million dollars, but it’ll be serving every one of those 80 people on site better, as well as 32 more beds – a total of 112 people on a given night. And we see our beds being used two or three times in a year. Last year, with 80 shelter beds, we were able to serve over 200 people.
Miller: Meaning, people stay on average a third of the year, so maybe four months?
Vincent: Yeah.
Miller: So the million dollars, for the fiscal expansion … we’ve talked a fair amount over the last year-and-a-half or so about the city of Salem’s big budget crunch. Where is the money for the infrastructure going to come from?
Vincent: We are so encouraged by the community that exists here in Salem. Every one of the structures on our sites – shelters, offices – have been paid for by private individuals, churches, business organizations. We are thankful that originally the city of Salem partnered with us on operations and now those support contracts are with the state of Oregon.
Miller: So the money for the infrastructure comes from private individuals, but ongoing support for operations now comes from the state?
Vincent: Nailed it.
Miller: For how long?
Vincent: Right now, those contracts go through June of 2025. We are very encouraged by our conversations with the legislature about their hope to maintain all the efforts that have been started under the governor’s emergency order, to continue those beds that are effectively serving people and transitioning them out of homelessness.
Miller: Another of the governor’s big priorities is to streamline and simplify zoning to increase housing production statewide. I don’t know that the kind of housing that we’re talking about here is exactly what she had in mind. She’s talking more in general about workforce housing or low income housing. But I’m just curious what it’s been like for you to work with city planners or other people in Salem in terms of permitting and zoning, if you have to get their permission to do this expansion?
Vincent: We have had nothing but supportive relationships with our mayor, council, city planners, city engineers, our fire department – all of them have been incredibly collaborative. Yes, there has been a house bill to help the siting of these shelters. But Salem was way ahead of the curve, wanting to have their own ordinances and code to support micro shelter communities very specifically.
Miller: What do you think is behind the demographic realities that we started with? I mean, the fact that you’re seeing more and more people 55 and over who are homeless?
Vincent: As all of us are feeling the pinch of a housing crisis and our rents going up, that doesn’t work well when you’re on a fixed income and you’re moving into the later years of your life. So those folks that are on social security or even disability, they’re not able to make their rent payments like they were in the past. And that’s why we’re seeing this rise in unsheltered homelessness for those over 55 years of age.
Miller: We’ve been focusing on the expansion in Salem. But my understanding is that you also have work underway with partnerships in the cities of Dallas and Monmouth. What’s happening there?
Vincent: Yeah, we are very thankful to be invited to expand out into Polk County. And we have heard a lot from the community that they want us to take an approach that is right-sized for a rural community. So initially, we plan to serve 40 people just in Monmouth. We received a lot of feedback around that. And so now we’re gonna serve families, 20 individuals, four households at a time in Dallas. And we’re gonna serve those individuals in a property setting in Monmouth.
Miller: When you say we receive a lot of feedback, is that a careful way of saying you got a lot of people saying, “This is too big. We don’t want it in our community”?
Vincent: Way to read between the lines. There, we have, again, community partners asking us to come and we’ve got neighbors who haven’t had a lot of shelters in their community before. And they have concerns. We’re trying to answer those concerns with a lot of conversations.
Miller: DJ Vincent, thanks very much. That’s DJ Vincent, founding pastor and CEO of the Salem-based nonprofit, Church at the Park.
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