PROGRAM MISSION

The mission of SOS is to work together to provide a safe shelter, a warm meal, and caring human contact for people who are homeless.

1. Caring

Those who volunteer at SOS recognize that an individual or family cannot move towards self-sufficiency if their most basic human needs are not met. We provide shelter and caring human contact for the homeless during their times of most profound need.

2. Hope

Hope is a confident expectation and desire for good things to come in the future. The SOS program and its volunteers believe that each of its guests can make significant progress toward reaching their individual goals. Hundreds of clients move through the shelter system each year on their way toward reestablishing their self-sufficiency. It is our faith and hope in them that can help facilitate their reentry into mainstream society.

3. Respect

Each of our guests possesses great worth and value. It is our desire that any person who utilizes our program receives the consideration, which is due regardless of his/her ability or willingness to move towards self-sufficiency.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The SOS program provides supportive services in the form of shelter and hygiene supplies to the homeless citizens of Springfield from November 1 through March 31. During these months, SOS is designated to take in guests after all other homeless shelters are beyond their capacity. Volunteers from congregations, service organizations, local businesses, families and individuals throughout the city staff the shelter.

The shelter site is open from 6:00 P.M. until 7:00 A.M. each night of the week after it has been determined that other shelters are over capacity. Guests are asked to show identification cards and to follow shelter site rules enforced for their protection and for the health and safety of the volunteers.

SOS services are free to homeless clients and they are allowed to use the system for as long as services are needed. Last season, volunteers who worked at least one of three shifts staffed the shelter. Other support groups donated food, linens, toiletries, paper products and monetary contributions. Volunteers must attend the orientation sessions.

Springfield Overflow Shelter History

The SOS shelter emergency system began in January 2004 and concluded at the end of March of 2004. As a result of the death of a homeless man who died on the streets from exposure to the cold, representatives from the Illinois Department of Human Services Homeless Services Bureau initiated meetings with the homeless service providers in Springfield.

The goal of these meetings was to establish a homeless shelter protocol plan that would help ensure that we were doing everything we could to prevent others from dying on the streets. At that time on call Youth Service Bureau workers agreed to provide referral services for homeless individuals and families.

The primary emergency shelters utilized were Contact Ministries, Helping Hands and Salvation Army. Approximately thirteen other transitional and social service providers provided additional beds as well as emergency funding to place the homeless in area hotels after all the shelter beds were full.

In the Spring of 2004, service providers are members for the Heartland Continuum of Care in conjunction with the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness began looking into other long-term options for creating additional shelter beds. The Springfield Overflow Shelter system was the result of those efforts.

The SOS system is based in part upon the Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS) program administered to homeless citizens in Lake County, and in several other locations throughout the United States. PADS Crisis Services, in Lake County by Chicago began as a Crisis and Referral Hotline in 1972.

Trained workers provided around the clock telephone intervention, information and referrals to many Lake County residents. PADS personnel provided a presentation for all SOS providers and prospective community and church volunteers in Springfield in June of 2004. DHS provided a one-day training session for current SOS volunteers on September 28, 2004. . The SOS system is dependent upon volunteer services provided by the local church communities.

The SOS system provided services in the form of shelter, meals and hygiene supplies to 256 different homeless citizens of Sangamon County from November 1, 2004 through March 31, 2005 in the basement of Contact Ministries at 1100 East Adams Street. During these five cold winter months, over 200 trained volunteers from at least 20 faith based organizations, state agencies, and the general public worked under the supervision of staff provided by Contact Ministries, Helping Hands, Salvation Army and other social service providers.

The SOS shelter will open on November 1, 2005 from 6:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. and remain open each night of the week through March 31, 2006. SOS will provide shelter and evening meals to each participant during their stay. This will be the second full season for the Springfield Overflow Shelter. The plan for the 2005-2006 season is for at least one staff person to be at the Springfield Overflow Shelter at all times.