A Springfield nonprofit that serves the homeless says a timeline has been established for closing the Missouri Hotel.
The Springfield facility along Commercial Street has housed homeless individuals since the 1980s. Officials with the Kitchen, Inc. say they’ll announce plans for closing the facility and efforts to work toward ending homelessness during a press conference next Wednesday.
A news release states that the plan “includes transitioning those living at the hotel into other emergency shelter accommodations, as well as permanent housing throughout the community.” It says several support services at The Kitchen Medical Clinic and Rare Breed Youth Outreach will continue.
Rorie Orgeron, CEO of The Kitchen, Inc. said in the release, “The two overarching goals of any shelter system should be to reduce the length of time individuals remain homeless to the shortest possible span, and to return individuals and families to permanent housing in the community as quickly as possible. Across the country, and in our own community, the Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing models have proven effective at meeting these goals.”
The release went on to say that these models have expanded the organization’s existing housing programs by adding significant extra capacity to them.
Orgeron continued, “These efforts are designed to not only end homelessness in our community, but also to prevent it and speed the transition back to permanent housing for children, youth, families, single women, chronically homeless individuals and veterans.”
Reached by phone, a Kitchen official declined to provide additional details about next week’s announcement, referring only to the press release.
The press conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14 at the The Missouri Hotel, 420 E. Commercial Street.