Ten years ago, the largest homeless shelter in norther Virginia nearly found itself without a home. Carpenter’s Shelter was forced from the Alexandria warehouse it had occupied since 1990, unable to keep pace with increasing rent payments. The eviction was one of the best things that ever happened to the shelter.
Carpenter’s Shelter reopened its doors down the road, settling into a larger building thanks to an act of Congress and a fortunate turn on the real estate market. Its new location allowed the shelter to expand its services, placing a greater priority on family outreach and transitional assistance for shelter graduates. Today, these programs define the shelter’s mission.
“We’ve grown from a mission shelter in the early 1980’s to a year-round operation that truly serves all of the metropolitan area,” executive director Frances Becker explained. “Our focus has changed as well. Our mindset these days is more on preventing repeated episodes of homelessness, and our prevention methods have proven to be extremely successful.”
Carpenter’s Shelter grew out of the basement of the Blessed Sacrament Church, where over two decades ago a pastor set out cots for the homeless on winter nights. The shelter moved into a vacant warehouse when the church building was demolished, but quickly outgrew that facility and had to relocate again, this time to a larger warehouse on North Henry St.
The shelter remained in this building for five years, but eventually its expenses became unbearable. In 1995, an eviction notice brought Carpenter’s Shelter to the brink of closure.
“Our rent payments were really high, and after a while we could no longer support them,” Director of Development and Strategic Alliances Alizon DeCourcey “We had to look for other options.”
Under the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, which gives organizations serving the homeless first priority for the use of surplus federal property, Carpenter’s Shelter laid claim to a plot of land around a closed military base. The Shelter then sold its newly acquired property to private developers, purchasing an old Department of Motor Vehicles building nearby its warehouse location with the profits.
Throughout the transition, the shelter never missed a beat.
“We served breakfast at our old site one morning and gave out bag lunches here that afternoon,” DeCourcey said. “Volunteers were literally carrying bookcases down the road.”
Mounting an aggressive capital campaign, the shelter renovated and expanded its new site, aided largely by efforts from throughout the community. Local builders donated materials, local businesses donated funds and local residents donated their time and effort as the shelter settled into its new location.
The connection to the community remains an integral part of the shelter’s operations; each year, 900 volunteers staff desks, read to children and fill a variety of other roles that keep the shelter running. Carpenter’s Shelter serves three meals per day, all of which are donated, prepared and served by volunteers. On Tuesdays and select evenings, a retired doctor provides pro bono medical services to shelter residents.
The relationship between the shelter and its community is reciprocal, as Carpenter’s Shelter runs Alexandria’s hypothermia program. Through the coordinated efforts of five different facilities, this program offers overnight shelter to the homeless throughout the winter.
Year-round, Carpenter’s Shelter runs a drop-in day center, David’s Place. Open from 8:00 a.m. through 4:00 p.m., David’s Pace supplies over 400 adults annually with access to showers, laundry machines, computers and various self-help programs.
“It’s a first step to get people off the street and help them rebuild their lives,” DeCourcey said. “Our goal with David’s Place is to get people in the door, and sometimes people move from there to the main shelter.”
The residential shelter at Carpenter’s features 80 beds divided among various sizes of private bedrooms. All residents come with a referral from the Alexandria Community Services Board, and they are assigned to an in-house case manager upon arrival.
Adult residents are required to work during the day, and Carpenter’s Shelter holds one-fifth of their income in escrow for personal savings. They receive the contents of this savings account when they are ready to leave the shelter.
The shelter also offers specialized programs for homeless families, a service overlooked by many other homeless facilities. Children, who account for over one-third of the shelter’s resident population, have their own recreational lounges stocked with brightly colored toys, puzzles and games. Educational opportunities also abound, as the shelter arranges transportation to schools throughout the region and provides tutors for individual assistance during the evening.
“Homeless agencies often focus on adults, without considering the needs of families and children. We’ve taken on staff specifically to help us deal with families and kids,” DeCourcey said.
Most residents leave the shelter within half a year of entering it, but their connection to Carpenter’s continues long after they walk out its doors. Carpenter’s provides low cost transitional housing options, and an aftercare network connection hundreds of individuals and families across metropolitan D.C. Aftercare allows patients to continue the case management they started in the shelter and provides a support group for their transition into a new life.
All told, Carpenter’s Shelter and its various programs serve over a thousand people annually. An even greater measure of the shelter’s impact, however, lies in the number of people it no longer has to help.
“In the past, people would leave our doors and in six months they’d be back on our doorstep,” Becker said. “Our Aftercare program has helped change that. We used to be squeezed to get people moving on; today we have empty beds. We don’t have the wait list that we used to.”
Others have taken note of these accomplishments. Last year, Carpenter’s was a finalist for the Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management, an honor bestowed by the Washington Post and Washington Council of Agencies. A decade after facing down its own eviction, the shelter’s success in the face of adversity still provides a model for those who enter its door.
