Geddes Hall, Coffee House
For many years, housing has been a persistent challenge in South Bend. Come learn from the center's Community Fellow, Sheila McCarthy, Ph.D., about her work with Motels4Now, South Bend's only low-barrier shelter. Motels4Now uses a Housing First approach, an effective, evidence-based, low barrier approach to housing the most vulnerable. Motels4Now is rapidly ending chronic homelessness in South Bend as early as next year. Working in concert with other agencies and housing providers the program moves toward a day where all are housed in dignity. Housing provides necessary stability, a prerequisite to addressing other issues in one’s life. Here in South Bend, responding to tent cities emerging at the start of the pandemic, Our Lady of the Road created Motels4Now, the only Housing First program in northern Indiana. Motels4Now has housed 110 people nightly in shared motel rooms for the last 18 months, with a 75 percent success rate from 460 total guests. Motels4Now‘s trauma informed approach targets people who are the most difficult to house, who have been living on the streets for many years, suffering with mental illness and addiction. Despite these challenges, individuals who move on from the motel program are twice as likely to be entering a better option. This is a direct result of Motels4Now’s ability to meet people where they are, and accompany them into housing.
Please register by Monday, March 28, 2022.