Danville Rescue — formerly Vermilion Community Restoration — is in the dark with more than $30,000 in electricity bills, hindering its efforts to reopen the local men’s shelter ahead of the winter. The board shared updates on their progress as they work to re-open the men’s and women’s shelters in Danville. Both shelters were forced to close earlier this year due to issues with the buildings, as well as a loss of funding under previous leadership.
The meeting was held inside the men’s shelter on the corner of Bowman and Fairchild on Saturday morning in sweltering heat.
“It’s kind of in shambles,” said Danville Rescue’s Vice President Michael Ewing. “And we left it that way purposely. We wanted the media to see how it was left.”
Currently, the men’s shelter has no electricity, which means no lighting, no air conditioning, no heat when the winter comes, and no refrigeration, Ewing says.
“The power has been cut off this week. We don’t have the funds,” Ewing said. “So we wanted them to sweat in there. We wanted them to see that so that people don’t just say, ‘Why don’t you have it open?’ Well, if we get the funds, we can open it.”
The building’s electric bill was left unpaid for so long that it rose to more than $30,000, according to Ewing. The board must come up with nearly $13,000 to get the electricity in the men’s shelter turned back on.
With such debt looming overhead, Ewing and his wife, Catherine, are working tirelessly alongside other board members and volunteers to get the shelters opened before winter.
“We only have three people on staff and then everything else is all on donated time,” Ewing says. “It’s a lot of things that we need. It’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we need to make public and we want to be transparent.”
The men’s shelter, in particular, is in such shambles, Ewing says, because the previous board preferred to keep the shelter’s declining state of affairs private.
“The old board president didn’t want a lot of things to be in the public’s eye and it kept building and building until the bottom fell out,” Ewing said. “You can’t just keep holding it up when it’s falling. Let the world know you need help.”
That is the board’s main aim these days, he says: to inform the public of just how badly the shelters are faring after years of mismanagement and a recent slump in donations after the shelters closed and the new board took over.
The first step to getting both shelters up and running again is to secure donations from previous donors.
“We’ve got a letter typed up with our letterhead with everything on it and we’re going to be appealing back to those old donors to get those relationships back. Because we were in limbo for a while [between boards], so they kind of backed off,” Ewing says.
He is hopeful that more will be willing to donate now that the new board has released their plans for re-opening the shelters.
Though they plan to provide extensive programming and mental health services in the future, Ewing says, the men’s shelter will only be open overnight initially during the winter months until they can secure funding.
“We want to be able to get the men out of the cold, so we’re gonna offer 50 beds — first come, first served,” Ewing says. “We’re gonna have a check-in set for 6 p.m. and then bedtime and then that following morning we’re going to give them a continental breakfast and then they have to leave by 8 a.m.”
As for the women’s shelter, Ewing says, it should be open by early November. Unlike the men’s shelter, which needs extensive work to get it up to code, according to Ewing, the women’s shelter needs very little work.
“It’s just needing a few little things to tweak. We’ve got a little leak and a couple knobs and some cameras to be put up,” Ewing says.
Ultimately, Ewing says, the organization aims to not only shelter those in need but provide them a path to getting back on their feet and contributing to their community.
“It’s going to be a 90-day program and we’re gonna bring them in, offer them resume building, get ID cards, all of these things that they need so they can become a productive citizen again,” Ewing said. “Our long-term goal would be to provide these special services and we’re going to have an intake system for them, where we can have professionals that’s going to examine them and find out what their needs are, and then we’re going to have in place the people that can meet those needs.”
Part of the board’s plan to secure reliable, consistent funding is to apply for state and federal grants, which require the shelter to be running for six consecutive months before they can apply. That’s one reason they are opening the women’s shelter first, to start that clock, according to Ewing.
Once they’re able to apply for those grants, Ewing says they plan to “flood everywhere possible that we can apply for a grant. We’re going to be knocking on those doors.”
In the meantime, they are seeking assistance in learning how to write grant proposals and will be training to prepare for that day. Until then, they rely on donations, as well as income from the Danville Rescue Thrift Store, across the street from the men’s shelter.
“We’ve got to give to them in the beginning, but we want to give to them so they can have an opportunity to receive help to be able to give back. That’s the whole point,” Ewing says.
Those interested in helping to get the shelters open can check out the Danville Rescue website for details on how they can donate.