POUGHKEEPSIE – The recent bitter cold weather isn’t placing too much of a burden on Hudson River Housing’s (HRH) homeless shelter thanks to a new program in 2015.The board of directors discussed that and accomplishments in 2014 at their annual board meeting on Thursday in Poughkeepsie.
Hudson River Housing has a 60-bed homeless shelter. Associate Director Christa Heins said they have invited people who are chronically homeless to stay permanently at the Hudson River Lodging Facility in the Town of LaGrange.
Those residents are gradually working their way through an employment and training assistance program to get them back into the workforce or to volunteering in an educational program so they can maintain their housing, she said.
That has helped to free up space in the shelter so that people who are in crisis from the cold have an open bed there.
The opening of the Liberty Station Veteran’s Housing Program in 2014 was among HRH’s accomplishments of the previous year. It has 26 units for homeless vets and housing and service are now located at one site.
Toney Moody, a Hillcrest case manager and former client, described his experience of helping a man who was recently released from incarcerated get his first home. Moody got a housing Supportive Services for Veteran Families grant through HRH when he needed help. He went on to work for HRH.
The process for the client was a rollercoaster; some days things went well in the process and he was happy and other days there would be complications and anger and tears. Eventually the young man got his house.
“At the end of the day on my last trip out to his house,” Moody said, “we were bringing out a bed for him. You could just see him smiling from ear to ear. It was the first time he’s owned a home; everything in the house was important for him to show.”
HRH offers service for men and women who need help making the transition from incarceration, as well as homeless men and women, and veterans.
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