By Jesse Roman
Staff Writer
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BEVERLY — A hodgepodge of state, city and private money has been pledged in an eleventh-hour effort to keep the River House homeless shelter from closing this summer.
"It looks as though we're close to patching something together," Beverly Mayor Bill Scanlon said shortly after a meeting yesterday afternoon with about 15 people representing the shelter, local banks and community organizations, as well as current and former state and city leaders.
"It was a lot of people who are involved in charitable and philanthropic activities," Scanlon said. "We kicked this all around nine ways to Tuesday."
During the meeting, the group identified about $60,000 that could be used to fund the shelter through the summer, including about $21,500 from the city and $25,000 from the state. It will take about $75,000 to keep the shelter open nights and evenings from May to November, according to River House officials.
The nonprofit shelter on River Street announced last week that it doesn't have enough money to remain open 24 hours. As a result, from May 1 through Nov. 1, the shelter had planned to stop offering evening meals and would not provide overnight stays to the dozens of homeless people who sleep there each night.
About 160 individuals stayed overnight at River House in 2010, with an average of about 32 per night, according to Linda Anderson-Mercier, the River House board president. With emergency shelters in Salem, Gloucester, Lynn and elsewhere already filled to capacity, there's no place for Beverly's homeless to go but the streets unless something is done, Scanlon said.
"There's a prospect for as many as three dozen homeless souls wandering around our community all hours of the day and night, and I'm not sure the general public has picked up on that yet," he said. "This wouldn't be good for anyone."
State Sen. Fred Berry, D-Peabody, called Scanlon yesterday to say that he has secured $25,000 in state aid to help keep the shelter open. The city of Beverly will also give an additional $21,500 from a fund that was set aside in 2003 when Thomas Crean was mayor. The money came from a charitable organization that had given it for the city specifically to use in case the River House shelter fell on hard times, Scanlon said.
"These are funds the city had that, frankly, I didn't even know about until last week," he said.
Another $5,000 was pledged by a local charity, and an individual has offered to donate $10,000 to help the shelter remain open. That still leaves a gap of another $14,000, which the group hopes can be filled by private donations. Donations can be sent in a check made out to River House in care of Beverly Cooperative Bank, Scanlon said last night at a City Council meeting.
The city has already contributed $8,000 to River House in this year's budget, which ends June 30. Scanlon has said there is no money for the shelter in next year's budget.
The River House board voted 9-1 on April 1 to close the shelter nights and evenings this summer for lack of money. The 36-bed shelter would remain open during the day for services such as counseling and computer use.
The shelter receives about $50,000 of its $200,000 annual budget from government sources, with the rest coming from private donations, grants and foundations, according to Beth Hogan, the executive director of North Shore Community Action Programs, which manages the homeless shelter.
With the economy's sluggish recovery and every charitable organization competitively vying for each donation dollar, the shelter has had a hard time raising as much as it had in the past, Hogan told The Salem News last week.
"We're getting funding from the same people who would've funded us in the past, but we're getting less," she said.
Beverly first opened the emergency winter shelter at the former McDonald's building on the waterfront in 1999. The shelter moved to River Street in 2005, after receiving a $500,000 grant to renovate the building and construct five single-room apartments on the upper floors.
While Scanlon says that he's "quite certain" the funds will come in to keep the shelter from closing this summer, he admits this is just a stopgap.
"This is not a long-term solution, but now at least there is time to work on this and find a more long-term solution," he said.
