Crosslines opens new permanent emergency women’s shelter

After years of operating in borrowed spaces, an emergency women’s shelter has a permanent home.

Officials with Crosslines Community Outreach held a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 28 to mark the opening of a new shelter for its Safe to Sleep program. The roughly $4 million, 8,000-square-foot facility was officially dubbed the Romona Baker Emergency Women’s Shelter at the event. Located on the west side of the nonprofit’s 3055 E. Division St. headquarters building, the shelter is named in honor of Baker, a retired teacher who started Safe to Sleep in 2011.

Since the program’s launch 15 years ago, the shelter has mostly been in the gymnasium of Pathways United Methodist Church at 1232 E. Dale St., said Jaimie Trussell, CEO of Crosslines Community Outreach. Trussell said the program has served over 4,200 women since inception.

While she said the nonprofit has been very appreciative of the church providing shelter space, it wasn’t a permanent solution.

Joplin-based R.E. Smith Construction Co. was general contractor and Paragon Architecture LLC served as architect for the project. Around $2.2 million for the shelter was split between the city of Springfield and Missouri Department of Economic Development via American Rescue Plan Act funds.

That left around $2 million left to fundraise through a capital campaign, Trussell said. Baker was a big part in kicking off the campaign, she added.

“She wrote 86 two-page handwritten letters to people who had supported Safe to Sleep through the years and told them why this was so important,” Trussell said. “And before we even launched the campaign publicly, we had raised $250,000 from those letters.”

The campaign picked up so much momentum that Trussell said CCO exceeded its goal by $300,000.

“So, we will have a health maintenance fund going forward,” she said.

Trussell said the opening of the shelter on CCO’s property is a mix of relief, excitement and peace.

“It was a dream realized,” she said. “It is a weight that has been on our shoulders that we were offering a solution but not the best solution. Now we can relax in that we have the resources we need to serve the ladies well.” 

Safe to Sleep was created to provide women in the Springfield community experiencing homelessness with a safe, low-barrier place to stay overnight while connecting them with support, resources and pathways toward greater stability, according to a news release. The shelter, which has a 50-bed capacity, is open 365 days a year.

“Low barrier means you don’t have to enroll in a program, you don’t have to fill out a form,” Trussell said, adding it also doesn’t require women to have identification or prove residency. “You just need to have a place to sleep and be a woman over 18. There’s nothing like that anywhere else in the city of Springfield.”

Instead of cots in an open room, the new shelter provides women with individual sleeping pods complete with a bed, outlet and personal light. It also provides them access to shower spaces, a kitchen with an eating area and a lounge, along with other resources offered by the nonprofit, including a food pantry, foster care outreach and a diaper bank.

“Your things can be secured there in your cubicle, and you don’t have to go to your doctor’s appointment with a rolling suitcase,” Trussell said. “You don’t have to go to a job interview with all your items tucked in a duffle bag.

“It’s just a really much more dignified way for these ladies to rebuild their lives, and it’s just incredible.”

Numerous donors in the campaign expressed a desire for the facility to be named after Baker – an idea CCO fully supported.

“It wouldn’t exist without her. So obviously from the very beginning, we wanted to name it after her,” Trussell said, adding that University Heights Baptist Church – where Baker attends – was the shelter project’s first donor. “The challenge was she was reluctant. She’s very humble.”