Dover Interfaith Mission for Housing will remain in its longtime shelter space west of downtown Dover until the spring after initially planning to downsize at the end of this month.
The capital’s largest homeless shelter provider searched unsuccessfully for a new home for its 34-bed men’s shelter for years, periodically warning that they could be forced to leave their longtime rented location west of downtown Dover. With funding to cover rent payments running short, the nonprofit's leadership announced at the end of 2022 that they would have to end their lease this month prompted the nonprofit to prepare for an exit their current location in January. Though they intend to continue searching for a new permanent men's shelter, Dover Interfaith plan to temporarily relocate to the ground floor of a transitional housing facility they operate in residential neighborhood nearby, losing 10 beds in the process.
The nonprofit's leadership hoped moving in the winter would allow Kent County's winter-only Code Purple shelter to provide backup beds, but Kent County Code Purple Director Ennio Emmanuel says his volunteers raised concerns they weren’t prepared to take on additional demand.
"Our volunteers couldn’t," he said. "We were starting to turn people away, and the hospital is also seeing COVID-positive patients now and there’s nowhere for them to go."
Both Code Purple and Dover Interfaith often receive clients directly from nearby Bayhealth hospital, including some with disabilities that neither shelter is equipped to accommodate.
Earlier this month, Dover Interfaith and Code Purple began working together to fundraise enough to cover rent for the current men's shelter until March. The shelter's landlord – the Downtown Dover Partnership – also agreed to extend their lease.
Dover Interfaith Executive Director Karen Rowland says she plans to scale back the number of new shelter residents to avoid hard decisions when the shelter downsizes.
"If we know that we only have room for 20 – I think it’s actually 22 – I’m not going to go above that number," she said, "because I don’t want to have to pick and choose at the end of the season to say, ‘hey, you have to go.’ These are peoples’ lives that we’re talking about."
Rowland noted that Dover Interfaith and its partners will still need to determine how to support those who can't find shelter beds in March. "If we have an early spring, some people who sought shelter in the winter may go back to tents," she said, "and if funding becomes available to put people in hotels, we'll put people in hotels. It all depends on the weather."
Meanwhile, Dover Interfaith is working to convert another building west of downtown into long-term supportive housing and Code Purple is in talks to acquire space to open new transitional housing beds. Both nonprofits have also applied to receive American Rescue Plan Act dollars earmarked by the Kent County Levy Court for nonprofits, some of which may cover the cost of accessibility upgrades to better accommodate people with disabilities.
