You can help us solve homelessness 205 people at a time!

From the first day we moved into our new Shelter Home, we could feel the difference. Our guests entered a building created not simply to give them a bed for the night, but to give them a place where they could finally feel safe, cared for and at home. For the first time, they had somewhere to be morning, noon and night, with bathrooms and showers available when they needed them, free laundry facilities, three home-cooked meals every day and people surrounding them who believed in what was possible for their lives.

These things may sound basic, but when you have been living without them, they can change everything.

When a person no longer has to spend every day searching for a bathroom, carrying everything they own, wondering where their next meal will come from or trying to find a safe place to rest, they finally have the time and stability to focus on the things that once felt impossible. They can meet with a case manager, begin recovery, address their health, look for employment, return to school, reconnect with family and start working toward a home of their own.

That is what is happening inside our Shelter Home every day.

Our guests are moving forward and moving into housing, opening their beds for the next person who needs to come inside, step out of crisis and begin again. This model is proving that homelessness is not an impossible problem. When people have safety, stability and the right support surrounding them, they can overcome incredible challenges and create a new future.

We are solving homelessness 205 people at a time.

I also need to be honest about what it takes to make this possible, because behind all of the hope and progress, I am scared. The monthly cost of operating this beautiful Shelter Home is higher than we anticipated, and for many reasons those costs continue to place a very real strain on our budget. Providing this level of care is worth every cent, and I believe deeply that our guests deserve this reimagined kind of shelter, but believing in the work does not make the financial challenge disappear.

This is not a marketing tactic or an attempt to create urgency where it does not exist. This is a real need involving real people whose lives are being changed inside this building every day, and we truly need help to make sure this work can continue.

Our Shelter Home includes a full-service kitchen serving three meals every day, a medical clinic and medical dorms, recovery and wellness programming, workforce development, early education opportunities for our littlest guests and a dedicated team working around the clock to make sure every person who enters our home has what they need to move forward.

It costs approximately $210,000 each month to make all of this possible, and we are 100 percent privately funded. There are no tax dollars supporting our operations and no ongoing city, county or state funding carrying this work. Every meal, every shower, every medical bed, every class, every case management appointment and every opportunity offered inside this home is made possible by people who choose to believe in our guests and invest in what is possible for them.

This Shelter Home was built one dollar at a time, by one donor at a time. People saw the need, believed there could be a better way to serve our unhoused neighbors and found a way to help us build it. Together, they transformed an idea into a home that is now changing lives every single day.

Now we must come together again to sustain it.

We cannot continue placing so much of the financial responsibility on a small group of generous donors who have already carried an incredibly heavy load. The future of this Shelter Home should not rest on the shoulders of a few people. It should be carried by an entire community, with each of us giving what we can and recognizing that when thousands of people participate, no one person has to do it alone.

If 5,250 people join us by giving $40 a month, together we can fund the monthly operations of this entire Shelter Home.

That is the magic of this campaign. It is not about finding one person to solve the problem. It is about 5,250 people deciding that $40 a month is something they can do, and then watching those individual gifts become three meals a day, medical care, recovery support, education, employment opportunities and a safe place for 205 people to begin again.

This campaign could change the future of our Shelter Home. It would give us the stability to sustain what is already working while continuing to bring more support, innovation and opportunity to the people who need us. It would allow us to spend less time worrying about how we will cover the next month and more time imagining what else is possible for our guests.

And the impact does not have to stop in Boise.

As we continue to learn what works, we want to share everything we know with other communities. We will offer the knowledge, experience and design behind this Shelter Home to cities ready to create solutions of their own, because we believe this model can help solve homelessness one person, one community and one Shelter Home at a time.

We need 5,250 people who believe this work is worth sustaining.

When you give $40 every month, you will not simply be supporting a shelter. You will be helping a person come inside, feel safe, regain stability and move toward a home of their own. You will be helping carry this Shelter Home alongside thousands of other people who believe that our unhoused neighbors deserve more than survival. They deserve the safety, dignity and opportunity to thrive.

Let’s do this together, $40 dollars at a time, one donor at a time, every month, 5,250 of us are solving homelessness 205 people at a time.