Valley Restart Shelter

Provide emergency shelter, meals, and referral assistance to homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, families with dependent children and a limited number of single female individuals. We provide referrals for substance abuse and mental health assistance. Referrals to other "wrap-around services" are provided.During the year 235 people were sheltered. The average stay was 45 days. 75% of the people left with an income; 93% left for permanent housing; 60% were from this area; 40% were homeless for the first time. We also served 49,287 meals at the shelter, an average of 4,107 meals a month; these included persons from the navigation programs and the community who utilize our evening soup kitchen as well as our residents. We expanded our full-time staff to four in the Street Outreach/Navigation program. This program services chronically and disabled homeless on the streets of the Hemet valley who are not ready to enter the shelter but are interested in getting off the streets. There were 206 people contacted. Of those, 22 people were housed, and 74 remain active. Unfortunately, 2 people passed away. Many contacted people are not ready to change their lives. The Outreach team works diligently with each client they contact and follow up weekly. Housing placement through this requires intensive verification documentation. The Navigation program also provides showers, hygiene kits, clothing, water and snacks. Valley Restart has been an intern practicum placement site for both Bachelor and master' level social work and human services degrees from various universities and colleges including California Baptist College, Rutgers University, University of Phoenix, Arizona State University, University of California at Riverside, University of Massachusetts, Cal-State Los Angeles, and Cal-State San Bernardino.We also added 6 small home units referred to as pallet homes specifically for homeless seniors and veterans. We completed the project in June 2023 and passed final inspection on June 28, 2023. We await our occupancy permit to start helping more homeless in our community restart their lives.