Dekalb County’s Live And Let Live Shelter wants to increase community support and facility upgrades to address the growing needs of the local homeless population.
Board Secretary Nicole Curtis said the organization served 98 separate individuals over the last year. Curtis said the shelter currently provides basic necessities such as hot meals, laundry facilities, and showers to those in need.
“In the wintertime we want to make sure that people aren’t out in the cold at night and have a warm place that they can lay their head at night,” Curtis said. “And our goal would be to do more of that as we grow, but that’s where we’re at right now.”
Curtis said the shelter is currently navigating building code requirements that prevent the facility from hosting overnight guests for sleeping. Curtis said the building is currently coded for commercial use and must be upgraded to a multi-family residential status, which requires the installation of a sprinkler system.
“Right now, we’re not allowed to invite people in to sleep overnight,” Curtis said. “We can have people in for gathering, so that’s what we’ve done this year.”
The shelter is zoned for commercial use, according to Curtis. In order to house individuals overnight, Curtis said the shelter needs to be recoded for multi-family residential, similar to what hotels and motels are coded for.
The shelter currently operates three days a week during the spring, summer, and fall months. Curtis said the organization provides food bags to individuals to ensure they have meals on the days the facility is not open.
“We’d love to have onsite mental health resources, more job programs, getting people into jobs and just more ability to rehabilitate these folks along with providing those basic necessities,” Curtis said. “That would be our goal.”
Curtis said the shelter relies on a working board of eight to 10 members and assistance from local churches to maintain operations. Curtis said the lack of a sprinkler system and the current code status forced the shelter to limit its winter operations to nights when temperatures dropped below 35 degrees.
Struggling to find volunteers willing to stay awake and work overnight shifts, Curtis said the shelter wants to introduce paid positions as a way to incentivize more local workers.
“It’s very tough,” Curtis said. “We just hope to grow enough eventually to be able to create paid positions, if we can get some more financial support, maybe some grants, we hope to eventually have some paid positions at the facility that would help with that.”
Curtis said the shelter is working to increase awareness of its services through social media and partnerships with local organizations like UCHRA and the DeKalb Prevention Coalition.
