Room at the Inn serves shelter purposes for people in the area each winter at the Audrain County Shelter Resource Coalition in Mexico.

Winter may be months away, but the head of the organization said money is needed now to sustain operations this year.

Room at the Inn runs three full months, from December through February, and provides immediate help for people experiencing homelessness. Information from ACSRC states that Room at the Inn case managers work with guests “toward stable and permanent housing and applying for benefits to assist them with housing stability.”

Ra’Vae Moore, ACSRC executive director, said her organization needs $30,000 for the operating costs. ACSRC held its annual meeting July 21, when the subject of funding was broached. Patrons at the meeting learned about the shelter’s renovations, to be paid for by a state grant. 

“I don’t want to see us not have a shelter this year,” Moore said in an interview at her office, adding that too many people would be affected by the closure and there are people who never come to the organization any other time of year. “When it’s cold, and it’s snowing and it’s below zero, they need a place to stay.” 

Moore said Room at the Inn, or shelter or the shelter, and transitional housing and Community Resource Center at ACSRC don’t receive grant funding. She later explained in an email that the only government grants the organization receives are for homeless prevention (ESG) and rehousing (MHTF) and that the organiation does receive some grant funding from local foundations.  

“We do have NAP tax credits available, and the money we receive through NAP tax credit donations are used for transitional housing and the Community Resource Center,” Moore said in the interview with the Ledger. “NAP donations cannot be used for shelter. So, shelter is 100% community funded.”

She said the only grant received for the shelter was the Emergency Food and Shelter assistance, which was worth a few thousand dollars, but it has ceased.

“So, the way it sits right now, the most blunt I can be about it, is if we aren’t able to raise $30,000 - because it will cost us that to run shelter for three months - there will not be Room at the Inn this year,” Moore said. “That is terrifying for us, and it’s going to be extremely sad for this community, because we have a lot of people who utilized and will utilize Room at the Inn every season.”

Last year, ACSRC served 48 households, which translated into 57 people, for Room at the Inn, Moore said. Of those 57 people, 21 were taken into transitional housing. 

Moore emphasized that her organization does not bus people into the community, explaining she has heard that rumor circulated in the community. She said if ACSRC is only able to raise $20,000 of the $30,000 needed, then a decision will be made for which two months weather-wise would be the best to be open. The money is needed by Dec.1.

ACSRC does not receive grant funding for shelter because it is not ADA-compliant, because it didn’t have the ability to do that in the past; the revitalization grant for renovations will make shelter be ADA-compliant, though. That grant is only a construction grant and does not pay for salaries, operational costs and so on.

“The other stipulation for getting grant funding for shelter is you have to already have, not preparing to, but already have a year-round shelter, and we don’t,” Moore said.

Moore said transitional housing does not charge rent but people who stay there are required to pay program fees as transitional housing is a program. The program fees are not a profit for ACSRC; the fees allow people to stay there.

If people want to make a contribution to the shelter, they may call ACSRC at 573-567-5160 or call Moore directly at 573-469-5850. They also may make a contribution at acsrcmo.org.