The Inn at Ferry Street was our first permanent supportive housing program.  It’s located on the first floor of the same building that houses our emergency shelter.  There are nine single rooms, each with a sink and a small refrigerator.  Bathrooms, living room and dining room are shared. Basic cable is free, and three meals a day are provided.  According to Gail Walls, the program’s coordinator, while both the Lansing Inn and the Inn at Ferry Street provide housing to persons with serious life challenges and long histories of homelessness, the tenants at Ferry Street often need more hands-on and intensive support. 

“It takes a special person to work with our tenants,” said Ms. Walls.  “You have to have compassion and you cannot judge.  Staff needs to be willing to talk and listen to each our tenants—they have to get to know them.  More then anything, they need to be treated with respect.”

When we first opened the Ferry Street Inn, back in 1995, we made the rooms and the program small by design. We had concerns about the amount of space each of our prospective tenants would be able to take personal responsibility for. Based on previous life circumstances we anticipated stays of less then a year—all nine of our original tenants had been chronically homeless for at least ten years.

In the last 15 years we have learned a lot. The biggest lesson we have learned is that when you treat folks with dignity and respect and you offer them relief from some of the chaos in their lives they make great choices. Most of our tenants appreciate their homes. They pay their rent on time and they respect their space. They utilize the services available to them and they are often ambitious about setting goals and making positive life shaping change. Most of our tenants value the support in supportive housing, and they choose to stay.

Many of our tenants stay for years. They settle in. They age. They establish relationships in the community and their lives improve. Recognizing the relative stability that so many our tenants are able to achieve, about five years ago we decided to move and expand the Ferry Street Inn. Experience at our second site-based supportive housing program, the Lansing Inn, has taught us that folks with long histories of homelessness and disability can manage larger apartments. Like any of us, they are thrilled to have a private bathroom. A small kitchen lends normalcy. Living in a building infused with supports, where services are irresistible allows them to finally succeed in permanent housing.

Last month, we finally broke ground on our newest project at 202 Fourth Street, the site of the old Erlich Auto Parts store. When completed, this building will house 20 apartments--twenty studios and 2 one-bedrooms. Several of the apartments will have enhanced handicap accessible features built-in so that as our tenants age in place they will be able to stay in their homes. The one-bedroom apartments will be available to couples without children. In our very stressed and overburdened social service systems, couples with disabilities often end up living in different housing programs adding to the already significant challenges in their lives. In our new building, we will be able to bring two such couples together for the first time in years.

We’re very excited about our newest journey and we hope you will be too! Please come back and visit often. We will update you on our progress on this project regularly and hope that you will become involved one way or the other in the months to come.