HAC Transfers Management of NOAH Shelter to Fall River Diocese

CCB MEDIA PHOTO NOAH Shelter in Hyannis

CCB MEDIA PHOTO
NOAH Shelter in Hyannis

HYANNIS – The NOAH shelter in Hyannis will be under new management beginning next month.

Housing Assistance Corporation’s board of directors voted unanimously last week to hand over management of the homeless shelter to Catholic Social Services of the Fall River Diocese.

The agency will rent the facility from HAC and take over operations on November 1.

“I think overall there will be some real advantages to both the community and the clients to having Catholic Social Services there operating,” said Rick Presbrey, the president and CEO of HAC.

HAC is a non-profit that offers housing programs for those in need in the community. HAC educates, trains and counsels, weatherizes and conducts energy rehabs for low-income and market-rate properties, and develops affordable housing for seniors, families and individuals.

“This really frees us up to get closer to our central mission and to do what people really need most and that is to get into permanent housing,” Presbrey said.

HAC has a contract through the state to run the shelter through June of 2017 and the non-profit will transfer most of the funds received from the state to Catholic Social Services.

“Some of the housing placement money and some of the outreach money that we have in that contract we will be keeping,” Presbrey said. “And they will get, essentially, all the money that we use to presently operate the shelter.”

Catholic Social Services already runs three shelters in southeastern Massachusetts.

“For us it made much sense,” said John Kearns, a Fall River Diocese spokesman. “Catholic Social Services spends a lot of resources trying to serve the homeless population.”

Presbrey said Catholic Social Services is a unique agency.

“They can afford to take over an effort that basically loses money because they have resources coming in from the diocese making up for that,” Presbrey said.

Catholic Social Services will also keep the current shelter staff.

Catholic Social Services has a presence on Cape Cod. The organization has long had an office on South Street in Hyannis and also operates St. Clare’s, which provides services and transitional housing for women coming out of prison.

HAC, town officials and other agencies have been discussing a possible move of the NOAH shelter out of Hyannis. Presbrey said he will continue to work with the Transitional Living Center Committee on securing and funding a new location.

He said a new facility should have three sections: one that is dry, one that provides security and medical care, and care for those who are released from the hospital.

“The group that is meeting to create the so-called transitional living center is going to have to keep working on that project and to keep trying to focus on what the community really needs,” Presbrey said.

By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter

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