Church First Saw Need For Homeless Shelter
December 8, 2021 at 12:27 a.m.
By Carolina Keegan-
New Life Christian Church saw the need for a full-time homeless shelter around 2003, but couldn’t find any support for that, according to Pastor Bryan Lowe. They opened up their facilities for the coldest months of the year, offering dinner, showers, a place to sleep and breakfast.
The need was first recognized and addressed after a police officer reached out to Senior Pastor John Lowe concerning a mom and her two kids. The officer found the woman and her children hiding in the basement of the courthouse and arrested her, according to Bryan and John.
He called John, asking if the church would be willing to put the woman in a hotel in order to avoid having to arrest her. The church did so, paying for her to live in the hotel for a week, and, with the help of the Salvation Army, they readied their facilities during that time, Bryan said.
Between 2003 and 2007, the New Life gymnasium was split in half, one side reserved for men and the other for women. Members of the church volunteered as monitors, serving dinner, supplying items needed for showering, doing laundry, making sure that no one came in intoxicated and serving breakfast. The facility would close at 10 a.m. because much of Kosciusko County’s homelessness was transient, Bryan said.
In 2006, New Life Christian Church invited other churches in the area to get involved. “After one winter with other churches, an answer came,” Bryan said. Three other churches, Christ’s Covenant Church, Warsaw Community Church and Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church, offered their facilities in assistance. Each month during the winter, a different church would serve as a shelter.
Warsaw Community Church Senior Pastor Eric Lane decided to found Fellowship Missions, said Bryan. “If New Life were a Band-Aid, then they are the hospital.” The community responded to the establishment of Fellowship Missions, getting more involved and volunteering during Thanksgiving and Christmas and offering transit, Bryan said.
During the time New Life led the homeless shelter program, no more than 23 people would stay at the facilities, contrasting the average of more than 20 people using Fellowship Missions’ shelter each night, Bryan said.
Fellowship Missions was created over the course of the spring, summer and fall months and opened in 2007. It supplies programs for substance abuse, and has started working with the jail, Bryan said.
“They do a really good job at ministering to that now,” Bryan said, “taking them from homelessness and hopelessness to getting a home.”
Background checks are a standard for Fellowship Missions. If there is an active warrant for an individual’s arrest, a conviction against a child or if they are a registered sex offender, then they are not able to stay at Fellowship Missions, said Lane, “but we do help them find somewhere.”
Winona Lake Town Marshal Joe Hawn has encountered approximately 10 homeless people during his 33 years of police work. He described meeting a homeless individual who was sleeping in a post office.
The first thing officers do when they encounter a homeless person is evaluate where they need to go, whether that be the hospital, Fellowship Missions or The Bowen Center. Sometimes officers will take homeless people to Parkview Health in Fort Wayne.
In the case of the individual in the post office, he declined assistance, even after Lane, who happened to also be walking into the post office, spoke with him. Hawn later saw the man working in construction.
“They have to be OK with getting help,” Hawn said, and “Fellowship Missions has made a big, big, big impact.”
Claypool Police Chief Ben Sanders paid for a three-day stay at a hotel after taking some homeless people over to Fellowship Missions and finding them full. “If you can open one door for them, it can really help them out,” he said.
“We are the recovery hub of the county,” Lane said, as 65% of the individuals staying at Fellowship Missions are going through a recovery program. “Not everybody without a home has a substance abuse,” he said.
Fellowship Missions follows a different structure than a lot of other shelters: It functions not only as an emergency shelter, but also as transitional housing and as a recovery facility. “It is a safe place to really work on themselves and the situation that brought them into homelessness,” Lane said.
Fellowship Missions offers a number of different programs for its residents, although not everybody goes through them, according to Lane. One of these programs is the catalyst program, which enables residents to acquire the skills they need to live and work on their own, he said. Some examples he gives of classes the program offers include mental health, GED and college courses and personal skills.
“We are just barely scratching the surface of the county’s needs,” he said. Anyone who does not live under his own roof or under his parents’ roof is considered homeless, according to county policies. There are a lot of people right at the edge of homelessness, according to Lane, and there are many single-family houses with multiple families in them, or, for younger people, trailers with multiple people living in them, he said.
Fellowship Missions works with local mental health facilities, churches, hospitals, schools, Warsaw Housing Authority, food banks, businesses, foundations, first responders, other shelters and individuals to help support those experiencing homelessness. “We have to work together to help individuals out,” Lane said.
A local bank partners with Fellowship Missions to help teach economic and financial classes to the residents, Lane said.
Local businesses collaborate with Fellowship Missions to help those who are coming out of prison receive jobs. Some places will not hire because of certain offenses, Lane said, so some local businesses offer second-chance positions to individuals who are looking for jobs.
The shelter also partners with recovery agencies outside of Kosciusko County that offer longer-term treatment for drug rehabilitation and mental health recovery, Lane said. One partner, Faith Farms, is a 10-12-month addiction recovery facility in Florida. They go through the interview process with the resident, and Fellowship Missions staff fly with them and drop them off to make sure they are getting there safely.
“Our in-house recovery classes have been a huge blessing,” Lane said.
Many who reside in the Beaman Home have experienced harassment, mental, emotional, verbal and physical abuse and stalking, Beaman Home Executive Director Jennifer Hayes said. Verbal and emotional harassment are the most common among the Beaman Home residents, Rachel Bennett, the housing specialist and supervisor of case management, said.
The Beaman Home is a shelter specifically for those who have experienced domestic violence and lack the resources or the support needed to stay somewhere else, Hayes said. It is also a low-barrier shelter, meaning that no one can be denied unless they prove to be a danger to themselves or others.
The Beaman Home is a member of the Homeless Coalition in region two of Indiana that includes Kosciusko, Marshall, Fulton and Elkhart counties. This membership allows for Continuum of Care, Bennett said. In 2019, the Beaman Home served 330 people residentially.
“We are a short stay,” Hayes said. Many stay long enough to transition back home after court or into family or friends’ houses.
New Life Christian Church saw the need for a full-time homeless shelter around 2003, but couldn’t find any support for that, according to Pastor Bryan Lowe. They opened up their facilities for the coldest months of the year, offering dinner, showers, a place to sleep and breakfast.
The need was first recognized and addressed after a police officer reached out to Senior Pastor John Lowe concerning a mom and her two kids. The officer found the woman and her children hiding in the basement of the courthouse and arrested her, according to Bryan and John.
He called John, asking if the church would be willing to put the woman in a hotel in order to avoid having to arrest her. The church did so, paying for her to live in the hotel for a week, and, with the help of the Salvation Army, they readied their facilities during that time, Bryan said.
Between 2003 and 2007, the New Life gymnasium was split in half, one side reserved for men and the other for women. Members of the church volunteered as monitors, serving dinner, supplying items needed for showering, doing laundry, making sure that no one came in intoxicated and serving breakfast. The facility would close at 10 a.m. because much of Kosciusko County’s homelessness was transient, Bryan said.
In 2006, New Life Christian Church invited other churches in the area to get involved. “After one winter with other churches, an answer came,” Bryan said. Three other churches, Christ’s Covenant Church, Warsaw Community Church and Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church, offered their facilities in assistance. Each month during the winter, a different church would serve as a shelter.
Warsaw Community Church Senior Pastor Eric Lane decided to found Fellowship Missions, said Bryan. “If New Life were a Band-Aid, then they are the hospital.” The community responded to the establishment of Fellowship Missions, getting more involved and volunteering during Thanksgiving and Christmas and offering transit, Bryan said.
During the time New Life led the homeless shelter program, no more than 23 people would stay at the facilities, contrasting the average of more than 20 people using Fellowship Missions’ shelter each night, Bryan said.
Fellowship Missions was created over the course of the spring, summer and fall months and opened in 2007. It supplies programs for substance abuse, and has started working with the jail, Bryan said.
“They do a really good job at ministering to that now,” Bryan said, “taking them from homelessness and hopelessness to getting a home.”
Background checks are a standard for Fellowship Missions. If there is an active warrant for an individual’s arrest, a conviction against a child or if they are a registered sex offender, then they are not able to stay at Fellowship Missions, said Lane, “but we do help them find somewhere.”
Winona Lake Town Marshal Joe Hawn has encountered approximately 10 homeless people during his 33 years of police work. He described meeting a homeless individual who was sleeping in a post office.
The first thing officers do when they encounter a homeless person is evaluate where they need to go, whether that be the hospital, Fellowship Missions or The Bowen Center. Sometimes officers will take homeless people to Parkview Health in Fort Wayne.
In the case of the individual in the post office, he declined assistance, even after Lane, who happened to also be walking into the post office, spoke with him. Hawn later saw the man working in construction.
“They have to be OK with getting help,” Hawn said, and “Fellowship Missions has made a big, big, big impact.”
Claypool Police Chief Ben Sanders paid for a three-day stay at a hotel after taking some homeless people over to Fellowship Missions and finding them full. “If you can open one door for them, it can really help them out,” he said.
“We are the recovery hub of the county,” Lane said, as 65% of the individuals staying at Fellowship Missions are going through a recovery program. “Not everybody without a home has a substance abuse,” he said.
Fellowship Missions follows a different structure than a lot of other shelters: It functions not only as an emergency shelter, but also as transitional housing and as a recovery facility. “It is a safe place to really work on themselves and the situation that brought them into homelessness,” Lane said.
Fellowship Missions offers a number of different programs for its residents, although not everybody goes through them, according to Lane. One of these programs is the catalyst program, which enables residents to acquire the skills they need to live and work on their own, he said. Some examples he gives of classes the program offers include mental health, GED and college courses and personal skills.
“We are just barely scratching the surface of the county’s needs,” he said. Anyone who does not live under his own roof or under his parents’ roof is considered homeless, according to county policies. There are a lot of people right at the edge of homelessness, according to Lane, and there are many single-family houses with multiple families in them, or, for younger people, trailers with multiple people living in them, he said.
Fellowship Missions works with local mental health facilities, churches, hospitals, schools, Warsaw Housing Authority, food banks, businesses, foundations, first responders, other shelters and individuals to help support those experiencing homelessness. “We have to work together to help individuals out,” Lane said.
A local bank partners with Fellowship Missions to help teach economic and financial classes to the residents, Lane said.
Local businesses collaborate with Fellowship Missions to help those who are coming out of prison receive jobs. Some places will not hire because of certain offenses, Lane said, so some local businesses offer second-chance positions to individuals who are looking for jobs.
The shelter also partners with recovery agencies outside of Kosciusko County that offer longer-term treatment for drug rehabilitation and mental health recovery, Lane said. One partner, Faith Farms, is a 10-12-month addiction recovery facility in Florida. They go through the interview process with the resident, and Fellowship Missions staff fly with them and drop them off to make sure they are getting there safely.
“Our in-house recovery classes have been a huge blessing,” Lane said.
Many who reside in the Beaman Home have experienced harassment, mental, emotional, verbal and physical abuse and stalking, Beaman Home Executive Director Jennifer Hayes said. Verbal and emotional harassment are the most common among the Beaman Home residents, Rachel Bennett, the housing specialist and supervisor of case management, said.
The Beaman Home is a shelter specifically for those who have experienced domestic violence and lack the resources or the support needed to stay somewhere else, Hayes said. It is also a low-barrier shelter, meaning that no one can be denied unless they prove to be a danger to themselves or others.
The Beaman Home is a member of the Homeless Coalition in region two of Indiana that includes Kosciusko, Marshall, Fulton and Elkhart counties. This membership allows for Continuum of Care, Bennett said. In 2019, the Beaman Home served 330 people residentially.
“We are a short stay,” Hayes said. Many stay long enough to transition back home after court or into family or friends’ houses.
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