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New shelter set to open Saturday
40-bed facility expands county's capacity for helping homeless
Friday, Oct. 2, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
Project Echo is opening its new, larger homeless shelter this weekend.
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The Project ECHO homeless shelter has been a fixture along Prince Frederick's Main Street since 1992, but tomorrow its doors will move a couple blocks south to a new building that's been more than four years in the making.
In early 2005, volunteers began noticing they were turning away a high number of homeless for lack of space, particularly in the men's quarters. It was quickly decided that the 26-bed capacity shelter, which was also falling into disrepair, needed replacing.
So, naturally, Project ECHO's board of directors produced a demo tape and approached ABC about shooting an episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
"They were really interested," said Bill Stanton, president of Project ECHO's board of directors. "They indicated they'd like to do a show where they'd build three homeless shelters, and Project ECHO would be one of them."
But when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, the network's attention was understandably diverted to the disaster zones, Stanton said.
That's when the Housing Authority of Calvert County and Executive Director Wayne Boyle entered the picture. Boyle heard the shelter was looking for a new home, and figured the housing authority's backyard would make for a prime location.
A few years and more than $2 million in grants later, Stanton and Boyle hope to open the new 12,243 square-foot, 40-bed shelter the week following its Oct. 3 dedication.
Shelter manager Lori Hony, who has been with Project ECHO since 1994, is so excited to move into the new building, she etched her name in its sidewalk before the cement could dry.
"If you've been with Project ECHO since 1994 and you've dealt with some of these tough cases each day, you deserve to have your damn name in the cement," Stanton said.
The shelter's first floor has a dining room, kitchen, unisex bathrooms, food pantry, television room and reception office complete with monitors hooked to security cameras watching the doors and hallways.
Occupants or visitors must be buzzed into the building by a receptionist. Another room will have two donated computers with Internet access for schoolchildren.
School buses are required to pick up and take shelter children to their school, Stanton said, adding that two public buses can take adults to Chesapeake Beach or Solomons and back.
There is also a community room that could be used for church events or bingo nights. Stanton plans to partner with local organizations and hold training seminars on how to write resumes, dress for job interviews and other life skills.
The shelter will continue its practice of confiscating prescribed medications from occupants and will administer them from an examination room on the first floor. The room, which is being furnished by Calvert Memorial Hospital, will also be used for counseling sessions and by the health department to provide flu vaccine.
The second and third floors house the living quarters for women and children and men, respectively. The shelter's electronic elevator has a security keypad which will not allow men onto the second floor or women and children onto the third.
Each floor can accommodate 20 people. All men at the shelter will stay in two-person rooms that resemble college dormitories. The second floor has six two-person rooms and two four-person suites, each complete with a private bathroom and bed with an underneath pullout built by youth at St. John Vianney Catholic Church's Catholic Heart Workcamp in July.
Stanton also hopes to eventually fence in the backyard and install a playground for the shelter's children. About 1,800 of the nearly 7,000 bed-nights provided by the shelter last year were to children, Stanton said.
Original plans called for a family suite to be constructed in the basement, but there wasn't enough funding to do so. However, $375,000 earmarked for the shelter in the next federal budget by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) could pay for the suite, Stanton said. The current shelter sees anywhere from six to 10 families a year.
"People have this idea that they know who the homeless are. They don't," Stanton said. "You can't classify them. You can't cubby-hole them."
Fundraising for the $2.3 million facility began in February 2007. The construction, which began in January, was funded almost entirely by the sale of the existing shelter and state and federal grants, including $350,000 from the state to eventually buy two transitional homes in Lusby.
The effort has thus far been cooperative between Project ECHO and the housing authority, but with construction over, ECHO will assume full management of the facility.
"I've given you a Mercedes. You gotta put gas in it," Boyle told Stanton.
But the new shelter will not come without its challenges. The current shelter's $180,000 annual budget is certain to increase dramatically — initial estimates place the projected number of bed-nights provided at 14,600 annually, more than double last year's total. ECHO provides shelter, food and case management for about $25 a person.
"I think we do a lot for a little," Stanton said.
Increased occupancy will place a stronger burden on volunteers to rehabilitate, Hony said.
In addition, given the building's cost, its upkeep will become a priority. Occupants will be expected to care for the shelter and be held accountable for any damage they cause.
"You've got to have rules in the shelter because if you don't, things will get out of hand," Stanton said. "For the most part it's not a problem. Eighty percent of the people are good as gold. But we do, as in any community, have problem children."
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