Business Spotlight: Making a Home

Last edited 8:37 a.m., Aug. 1, 2023 [Editor's note: A clarification has been made regarding an emergency shelter, and a new development's name has been updated.]

The Kitchen Inc. celebrated its 40th year anniversary in March, marking a long history of making a dent in ending homelessness in the Ozarks.

The nonprofit was started by Sister Lorraine Biebel as a soup kitchen to feed the homeless. She started with $50 to feed 39 people. It’s since grown into a nonprofit staffed with 40 employees that provide housing for those without a place to call their own.

“When folks from around here think of The Kitchen, they remember our beginning times and associate the Missouri Hotel with The Kitchen,” says Meleah Spencer, CEO of The Kitchen. “That was a big part of what we did for many years. Then, as we evolved in helping folks get to permanent housing, we looked at different ways that we could do that.”

From the Missouri Hotel on Commercial Street, The Kitchen offices moved in 2018 to the O’Reilly Family Campus, which houses an emergency shelter and the Hamra Family Support Services building on Glenstone Avenue.

The Kitchen’s programs now include affordable housing developments for low-income renters, community housing, housing services for veterans and resources for homeless youth.

Spencer says the goal of The Kitchen has always been to help end homelessness, and officials have added an emphasis on self-sufficiency.

“As we evolved, not only as an organization, but also as a community, other options became available,” she says. “2014 is when we started looking at the housing-first approach and also different funding sources were coming in to allow us to be doing that. Then, we were looking at how we transitioned from the Missouri Hotel into a more permanent solution for those that were homeless and needed that help to self-sufficiency.”

More demand than housing
The demand for aid for families on the verge of becoming homeless, or already are, is greater than the services available. Spencer says The Kitchen housed 648 people last year, compared with 550 in 2019, before the pandemic.

Because not all organizations offer the same services or have the same criteria, those in need don’t go straight to The Kitchen, but to One Door, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program run by Community Partnership of the Ozarks Inc. At One Door, a state-mandated filtering process happens, where those in need are guided toward the organizations that can best help.

The Kitchen works with One Door regularly, and Adam Bodendieck, director of homeless services at CPO, says One Door has an active prioritization list for those who haven’t yet found the right help due to more demand than housing available.

“These are individuals or households that have come and they’ve completed the intake assessment, and that is valid for a 90-day period,” he says. “That list typically has anywhere from 400-500 households on it at any point in time.”

According to data released from the Ozarks Alliance to End Homlessness on Jan. 25, during a 2023 federally mandated point-in-time count, 617 individuals were noted as homeless in the Springfield metro area.

Rare Breed
Some of the area’s homeless are teens. Data released by the alliance show that of the 617 individuals counted as homeless in the area, 105 of them were children under 18 and 35 of them were youth between the ages of 18 and 24.

The Kitchen’s Rare Breed Youth Services works with about 700 teens and young adults each year, ages 13-24. The program celebrated 23 years in June. Rare Breed immediately will serve youth needing a variety of services such as basic hygiene, food or clothing. Teens also can go there to take a shower or do their laundry.

“There’s a lot of kids out there that as soon as they turn 18, their parents are kind of turning them loose per se, or not taking ownership of it,” says Ellen Hammock, president of the board for The Kitchen. “They need to have a place to go to get some assistance. There’s a lot of success stories that come out of Rare Breed, of youth that have been partnered with agencies and have gone on to finish schooling and seek employment and find a place to live.”

The Kitchen was awarded a grant for $49,910 from The Timken Foundation of Canton on July 18 for the development of a new learning center at Rare Breed. The center will serve as a place for homeless teens to learn about life skills and job preparation.

Senior homelessness
One of the major changes Spencer’s seen is housing for the homeless who are ages 55 and older. She says the oldest person currently housed by The Kitchen is 91 years old.

“We don’t have enough affordable housing for any age group and especially 55-plus with their fixed income,” Spencer says. “Different circumstances happened during the pandemic or other medical emergencies and they didn’t have the resources to get through that time. So, they’ve lost their housing and are coming to The Kitchen for help.”

In response to the demand, Spencer says The Kitchen is opening the Maplewood Villas development for homeless individuals over the age of 55. It is scheduled to open by Aug. 29, and will have 44 units. This development is the second one The Kitchen has for seniors. McClernon Villas, which has 36 units,  opened in 2017.

But that program won’t be the only one growing, Spencer says. The Kitchen is adding 12 units to its emergency shelter as well. The center currently has 13 units.

“We’re doing all of the fun background work that happens in developing a building,” Spencer says. “You’ll start seeing dirt digging and moving in 2024.”