Poverello Center
Since 1974, the Poverello Center has operated Montana’s largest emergency homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Located in downtown Missoula, between 275-350 people a day utilize the Pov’s life saving programs and facilities. [1][2][3]
In its Ryman Street emergency shelter, the “Pov” is at capacity sleeping 70 homeless residents a night, but regularly serves up to 104 people in need of shelter during the winter months.[4][5]
The Pov serves 100,000 hot meals, three meals a day, 365 days a year. The Pov’s "Food Insecurity Programs"; the soup kitchen, food pantry, grocery rescue program, and sack lunch program, feed thousands of hungry, homeless, and low income individuals and families each year.[6]
The Ryman Street facility also offers a "Breaking Barriers Program", which provides case management and supportive services to homeless and impoverished individuals and families, including bus passes, laundry, mail, identification, birth certificates, job and housing placement, and an on-site health clinic. Clients are homeless, working-poor, disabled, mentally ill, elderly, veterans, families and folks struggling with substance abuse recovery.[7][8][9]
The Poverello Center also administers the VA’s regional homeless veterans programs.[10][11][12]
Through a partnership with the Missoula Housing Authority, the Poverello Center also operates transitional housing facilities, The Joseph Residence at Maclay Commons for homeless families,[13] and The Valor House for homeless veterans.[14][15]
Additionally, the Poverello Center recently opened the Salcido Center, a daytime, downtown, drop-in center for the city’s most chronically homeless and mentally ill (co-occurring individuals and serial inebriates).[16] [17] This center is named for Forrest Clayton Salcido, a homeless veteran who was murdered in December 2007 on the California Street Bridge in Missoula. [18] [19]
Services at all sites include medical facilities, a food pantry, a clothing room, hot showers, agency and job referrals, a laundry room, among others, that help clients to move into safe, affordable housing and begin a life of integrity back in the work-force.
The Pov receives significant support from the community at-large. The Pov is frequently voted by both the Missoulian and the Missoula Independent as the area’s “Best Non Profit”; and the Executive Director, Ellie Hill, was voted in 2007 and 2008 as Missoula's "Best Activist" for her work with the impoverished;[20][21][22][23] and in 2009 the Pov was voted Missoula’s “Best Place to Volunteer”.[24]
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.thepoverellocenter.org
- ^ http://www.yelp.com/biz/poverello-center-inc-missoula
- ^ http://www.uwmc.montana.com/help.html
- ^ http://www.kpax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9514211
- ^ http://hpn.asu.edu/archives/2007-April/010302.html
- ^ http://www.missoulanews.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=BDC10201-2BF4-55D0-F1FEF90E17D4B1F9
- ^ http://www.missoulawritingcollaborative.org/index.php/fuseaction/about.main.htm
- ^ http://www.gardencityharvest.org/quick_links/csa.html
- ^ http://homeagainmissoula.com/
- ^ http://4and20blackbirds.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/regarding-missoulas-homeless-veterans/
- ^ http://www.mtvetsvoice.com/Selfservingcul.html
- ^ http://www1.va.gov/Homeless/
- ^ http://www.hud.gov/local/mt/library/archives/2005-08-23.cfm
- ^ http://www.vagovernorshousingconference.com/PDFs/Presentations/11_14/Housing%20for%20Homeless%20Veterans/Valor%20House%20-%20Breaking%20New%20Ground.pdf
- ^ http://editorialmatters.lee.net/articles/2007/07/10/stories/features/9efea034.txt
- ^ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/12/16/bnews//br35.txt
- ^ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/01/16/opinion/opinion29.txt
- ^ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/01/11/news/local/news02.txt
- ^ http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/global/story.asp?s=9507995&ClientType=Printable
- ^ http://knightmissoula.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/ellie-hill-speaks/
- ^ http://issuu.com/missoulanews/docs/freshfacts?mode=embed&nav=Fresh%20Facts
- ^ http://www.forwardmontana.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=173&Itemid=72
- ^ http://www.missoulanews.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=09572A5E-14D1-13A2-9FF93B5A28BC6C4F&nav=Best%20of
- ^ http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/05/02/news/local/znews01.txt
- ^ http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpt878
- ^ http://www.uccmsla.org/index_new_justice_witness.php
- ^ http://www.volunteer.umt.edu/About.aspx
- ^ http://www.kpax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9239012
