New Hayesville shelter to serve region’s homeless women

The new shelter is currently rented from Truett Church.

Listen to the interview with Executive Director Brenda Cormack

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Plans are underway for the region’s first homeless shelter for women. The shelter, New Life Women’s Center, is the result of executive director Brenda Cormack’s vision to open a faith-based center for women in Hayesville, but even though she heard the call, answering wasn’t easy.

“I thought, ‘Is this me? Is this God? I don’t see any homeless people; I don’t think there’s a need for that,’” she said.

NUMBERS

Cormack said she still has no idea how many homeless people there are in Hayesville.

“No one keeps numbers here,” she said. “It’s devastating because the law enforcement are losing money from the government. A lot of things are not computerized here… Numbers do not exist here in this area.”

Yet as Cormack began asking churches, meeting with local law enforcement and officials from the health department, she realized that the need was huge.

Though there’s no official progress to keep a count of the homeless population in the mountains, Cormack said she’s part of a coalition that’s trying to find the numbers.

“In Franklin people are sleeping under bridges and in cars,” she said. “We have the same situation here. There are people who are living in the woods… We just don’t see it.”

Cormack said she’s already been contacted by three churches wanting to know if the shelter is open yet because they have people ready to fill the beds.

“People are sleeping on other people’s sofas because there’s no place for them to go,” she said. “The health department sees women all the time who can’t even give an address.”

SHELTER

Cormack isn’t a newcomer to the homeless scene; in Florida she worked for a similar shelter that has served the community for more than ten years.

Like the shelter in Florida, the New Life Women’s Center will offer beds to women for about three months, Cormack said.

“They have time to actually try and change their life with those 90 days,” she said, noting that the shelter will offer programs and a case manager to help solve issues and get to the root of problems.

The shelter will be open 24/7, she said.

“Women can actually feel at home when they come in; it’s not like they have to roll their stuff up and get out of here at a certain time,” she said.

The local center will accept homeless women from Clay, Cherokee, Graham and Macon counties in North Carolina and Union and Towns counties in Georgia.

Cormack constructed a board of directors for the local center. The board is comprised of Jennifer Ray (president), Kelly Graves (vice president), Ruth Gibson (treasurer) and Janice Clement (secretary), among others.

It took more than a year for the board to find a strong location for the center, finally settling on a vacant house built in 1941 on Church Street in Hayesville.

The structure is being leased to the women’s center for $450 per month, Cormack said. The center plans to save enough to eventually buy the building for $110,000.

When the board decided on the house more than a year ago, it was in desperate need of repair. Since that time floors have been replaced, walls painted, and rooms prepared. Despite all the effort, the home still has a large unfinished basement that could be remodeled in the future for more room.

The location was not only central for the surrounding counties, but also convenient for Cormack, who lives close by.

“This worked out well for me because there’ll be times when I’ll have to come over here in the middle of the night,” she said. “I could even walk here if a situation arrises.”

Cormack said that accepting a woman at the shelter requires screening, a thorough background check to see if there are any outstanding warrants and drug testing (which isn’t inexpensive).

“I don’t want to have to drive 35-40 miles down the road [if a woman comes to my door] in the middle of the night,” she said.

FUNDRAISING

“What’s stopping us is the finances,” Cormack said. “You have to be up and running for at least a year for the government to give you some assistance. We’re praying that we don’t have to have assistance from the government, that the local communities will be able to show their support and to help us.”

Cormack said that she’s relying on Christians in the area to step up and contribute funding that the government may not.

“When you say you’re faith-based you’re crossing the line,” she said. “Lots of times when you’re going for grants they don’t like to see “faith-based.”

One-third of the center’s $150,000 budget needs to be in place before the doors begin to open, Cormack said. She aims to have the house open and running by April.

While some shelters rely heavily on volunteers, Cormack said her aim to have an experienced staff available at any time of day.

“We found out from experience down in Florida that to open with a volunteer staff is setting yourself up for failure,” she said. “Volunteers get burnt out.”

Cormack and her daughter have so far cleaned and decorated 15 empty juice cartons to use as spare change boxes at local businesses to help raise extra funds.

Local businesses have also been donating furniture, Cormack said, noting that in the last month Tri-County Office Supply contributed 35 chairs, room dividers and a conference table. A series of bunk beds were also donated. Cormack has also asked businesses if unused items can be sold at yard sales to raise money as well.

The shelter can’t begin yard sales until the winter has passed, but is planning a fundraiser at Brother’s Restaurant in Young Harris on Feb. 25.

From 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. 15 percent of all dinner sales will be donated to the shelter.

“It takes the word of mouth around here for things to start moving,” Cormack said, noting that she has already booked speaking engagements with local churches to share her mission.

Bake sales, raffles, even chances to win Nascar tickets and a contest for a trip to Las Vegas are in the works, all in the name of supporting the shelter.

HOMELESS

“I believe there is a call for what we’re trying to do here,” Cormack said, noting that it’s not been easy.

It’s tough to unite all of the drug coalitions and homeless efforts in the area, she said, adding that while the women’s center won’t be connected to REACH shelters, they would work together if need be.

“We would network with them but we do not cross the line,” she said. “We do not bring in a population of domestic violence with homeless. If for some reason…they need a bed and we have one available we would definitely let that person stay here until they a bed available.”

Cormack said the shelter will accept a mother’s children until they are 18 as long as they’re enrolled in school.

“A lot of families that are experiencing homelessness don’t want to be in mixed population shelters so they tend to stay in a car or together,” Cormack said. “A lot of people don’t like to expose that they’re homeless because then they’re afraid of losing their kids. Our shelter looks at the family unit, trying to bring the mom in with the child.”

The foster child population in the mountains is huge, Cormack said, because women involved in substance abuse have repeatedly had their kids taken away. She said the shelter’s job is to help monitor women with mentors, provide like skills studies and invite preachers to hold Bible studies. While residents won’t be forced to attend services, they are asked to at least meditate daily.

“It’s not a free ride,” Cormack said. “We give [women] two weeks once they move in to actually stabilize, understand that they’re safe, and then they’re expected to go out and look for jobs because we ask them to pay a small portion weekly so that they can contribute to the household.”

The board is considering a fee of $25-40 per week to help pay for food and other items. Cormack said that she recognizes the difficulty of finding a job in the current economy, but that it has to be done.

“I don’t want a lot of women just sitting down all day long,” she said. “They have to show me that there’s an initiative… A purpose to get up every morning.”

Cormack said she expects the shelter’s eight beds to fill quickly, considering the center serves six counties.

“[New Life] is about a new beginning for women,” she said. “Some women find homelessness to be a lifelong battle and lots of times it’s not their problem. Disease is. They can be suffering alcohol problems, substance abuse… We believe that with God all things are possible.”