Roseville Homeless Shelter Runs Out Of Money; Forced To Close
ROSEVILLE (CBS13) - A homeless shelter in Roseville has closed its doors, leaving 60 people on the street and a dozen employees without jobs.
For months and in some cases years, Roseville homeless have called the Gathering Inn shelter their home. But now the storage bins are empty, the halls are quiet and the lights are out.
"If this place wasn't here when we became homeless, I can guarantee I'd be either dead or in jail," Tom Hart said at the shelter Monday.
It was just three years ago that Tom says he drank himself and his family into homelessness.
Fighting daily for one of the 60 openings at the Gathering Inn and shoving their clothes, toys and other keepsakes into bins, he says life barely seemed worth living for.
"We were here for about nine months. I looked for work the whole time. It's real hard to find work when you don't have an address or a place to take a shower in the morning"
But the shelter offered just that - showers, Internet access, alcohol programs and job placement - offering Tom a second chance to sober up and get his family a home.
"I've started my own business as a handyman," he said. "Next month I'm going for my contractor's license."
But now, others won't have that chance here. The shelter started the year in debt and drops in donations left it with just one option.
"We started the year with an $80,000 deficit," Executive Director Suzi DeFosset said. "We weren't able to shrink it to zero."
That leaves folks like Jamie Holt-Spencer, who is eight months pregnant, guessing where she's going to spend her next night.
"It's the not knowing of what's going to happen after the month is over … if we're going to be out on the street with our newborn or what," she said.
The Gathering Inn needs about $150,000 to reopen its doors.
