(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Along Sierra Madre Street in Colorado Springs sits a shelter providing space for those in need.
“It’s (the Family Hope Center) the only place in El Paso County where families can come and be sheltered from homeless situations,” said Stephen Ball, a coordinator for The Salvation Army in El Paso County.
Some of the families who are using the shelter include Madeline Gronquist and her six children. She just had identical twins who were born two months premature before moving back to the Family Hope Center after they were born to get the help she needed.
“They give you resources for housing, food, clothing, anything that we really need,” Gronquist said.
But as her kids play inside the shelter, The Salvation Army, which runs the shelter, is facing a major budget problem.
“Our shortfall is $800,000 to $1 million and that’s right where we’re at right now,” Ball said.
Ball said the shelter usually has around a $1.5 million yearly budget, but rising costs from expanded services in recent years is causing the deficit.
“Funding that came in the last five years, like government support, funding and so forth, kind of made up some of the shortfalls and then it started to dwindle away,” Ball said.
Ball said 60% of the shelter’s funding comes from gifts and donations while grants support the rest. It’s why Salvation Army is going to City leaders to ask for help.
“We’ve been in talks with the mayor for a couple of months now, that he’s aware of it, and obviously he is very much aware of the need for homeless services in this community,” Ball said.
Ball is positive they can find a solution to help the shelter, but the clock is ticking as a final budget date approaches. The plan is not to close the shelter at any cost.
“We do foresee that we would have to limit the number of spaces available, so it’d be a capacity thing,” Ball said. “We’d probably bring it down to, 50% maybe, somewhere in that range.”
While they may not know how many beds will be available in the coming months, Gronquist has faith something will happen to save the day.
“I just hope that everything goes how it goes, and we raise the money so that families could keep coming here,” Gronquist said.
Ball told FOX21 News the Salvation Army hopes to put in a budget for the next fiscal year by the end of the month, but adds it needs to find some sort of financial help by Sept. 30 at the latest.
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