ROCKPORT, Maine — The region’s only homeless shelter is considering expansion with the purchase of a neighboring property.
The Knox County Homeless Coalition bought the 1.37 acre-property, including a large barn, from Nancy Wood on Nov. 20.
“We are always at capacity. That was asking a lot for that building,” said Stephanie Primm, the executive director of the Midcoast Hospitality House, which operates the homeless shelter on Old County Road.
The acquisition of the neighboring property will allow the shelter to look at increasing the number of people who can be served as well as providing more space for the programs it offers.
The current house, a renovated farmhouse, can shelter 20 people. The house is owned by Maine State Housing Authority and operated by the Knox County Homeless Coalition. The coalition places people in hotel rooms throughout the year when the shelter is full. But Primm said that the clients who are sheltered in hotels are isolated from others and from the staff that provides services.
She said that with acquisition of the neighboring property, the goal is to shelter 30 people at the one location.
“It’s always better to have them in a supportive environment with staff around,” Primm said.
With the additional land, Primm said the shelter also will be able to expand the garden that it used both to provide food for the shelter and educate clients on healthy eating and cooking.
“This would be an extension of what we already have,” she said.
The shelter reopened under the management of the coalition in February 2014.
The goal of the shelter, according to the coalition, is not just to provide shelter but to provide programs that will transition residents to their own residences. Programs include educational ones to help participants earn a general education development certificate. Cooking and nutrition classes are provided to residents in the house, which has two first-floor kitchens. Yoga classes are offered each week.
The house has a van that allows staff to take residents to medical appointments, counseling, career training and job interviews and to give children rides to recreational activities, such as to the Play Days indoor play center in Rockland or the Snow Bowl in Camden. The children also are taken to Head Start classes.
The Genesis Fund of Brunswick, which helps nonprofit organizations, provided the $286,000 mortgage required to buy the property.
Primm praised the Genesis organization as well as all the members of the community who support the shelter and its programs.
The acquisition of the neighboring land also brings together two lots that previously had been part of one of the area’s largest and most productive farms, Primm said. The two lots total about 8 acres.
Jamie Wood said the property was once part of a nearly 800-acre dairy farm known as the Randall Farm. The barn was constructed in 1897. The property was operated as a farm as late as the 1960s.