Important updates to Rebele Family Shelter and the Recuperative Care Center
Operating emergency shelters and supportive services for people experiencing homelessness has never been funded at the level needed to sustain proven solutions over the long term. Like many organizations in this field, Housing Matters faces ongoing structural funding gaps between the true cost of care and the public funding available to support it.
Housing Matters relies heavily on government funding for our programs, but most public funding sources only allow limited administrative and operational costs. To provide the robust services our participants need, we depend on private philanthropy and foundation support to bridge those gaps. As our organization and programs have grown, those financial gaps have grown as well.
The Rebele Family Shelter (RFS) and Recuperative Care Center (RCC) are both operating with significant budgetary deficits. To preserve these critical programs and move them toward long-term sustainability, we are making a difficult but necessary change.
Beginning in June, the Recuperative Care Center will relocate to the second floor of the Rebele Family Shelter building, while all family shelter rooms will move to the third floor. This transition is expected to reduce annual RCC lease expenses by more than $1 million and allow certain campus operating costs, including safety, facilities, and kitchen services, to be shared across both programs.
Rather than risk the closure of either program, we are reducing the capacity of both to preserve services into the future.
As part of this transition:
- Rebele Family Shelter capacity will decrease from 28 rooms to 18 rooms.
- Recuperative Care Center capacity will decrease from 30 beds to 20 beds.
These are difficult decisions that reflect broader systemic funding challenges facing homelessness service providers across the country. As always, we remain deeply committed to our mission of empowering individuals and families on their pathway from homelessness into stable housing.