Durham Rescue Mission; building renovation
On a mission to open shelter before cold
Author: Maria Beaudoin
Trying to beat the impending cold weather, staff members at the Durham Rescue Mission, joined by hundreds of volunteers, worked in the sun and rain Saturday morning to renovate the former Durham Inn on Knox Street off Interstate 85.
The hotel, once overrun by drug addicts and prostitutes, was acquired by the Christian ministry in August and will be renovated to house more than 100 homeless women, children and families. It will be renamed Good Samaritan Inn.
“We want to teach them job skills, not just give them food and shelter,” said Ernie Mills, founder and director of Rescue Mission. “We want to teach them the skills to survive. That’s the way you’re going to solve homelessness.”
The new building will allow the mission to triple its outreach to women, Mills said. About 45 women and children now live at the shelter; the new building will house about 150. The Rescue Mission, at the corner of East Main Street and Alston Avenue, then will house only men.
The renovations, which have been made possible entirely through donations and volunteers, include a large dining hall in the hotel’s former lobby, a computer lab and study hall, a nursery, an exercise room, several offices and classrooms, and a family picnic and playground area.
All the double beds were removed from the rooms and were replaced by 60 bunk beds donated by a research company that did an onsite sleep study. More than 100 surplus dressers from dorm renovations were donated by UNC. The outside was repainted by volunteers, with paint donated by Sherwin Williams.
More than 14,000 tons of discarded furnishings, remodeling debris and trash have been removed, Mills said.
Volunteers from around the community have been working every weekend to complete the repairs by Nov. 1.
“We need to have it done before the cold weather comes,” Mills said. “It’s hard to turn a mother away to the cold weather. But we’ve got to do it primarily with volunteers. It’s hard to set a date when you rely on volunteers.”
The women admitted to the new facility will participate in an eight- to 12-month program teaching them job training, such as computer skills and medical terminology, to suit them to the job market in Durham.
“A mother with a child cannot flip hamburgers and pay a baby sitter,” Mills said.
About 80 percent of the men and 40 percent of the women the Rescue Mission helps are drug addicts, Mills said. Other women were battered or married to drug addicts.
For this reason, rehabilitation is a major focus.
“When you think of a shelter, you think of a person coming in and spending the night and leaving,” Mills said. “We don’t do that. People have to stay at least a week here.”
Robin Stackhouse, 46, will be one of the women to stay at the new shelter.
Stackhouse is the mother of four grown sons and has been living at Rescue Mission for about a year since she moved from Atlanta.
“I love it there,” Stackhouse said. “I’ve learned the word of God. It’s teaching me about myself through teaching me about God.”
Stackhouse said that she was depressed because of anger over her childhood and had a drug problem. She also lost her cleaning business.
At the new shelter, Stackhouse said, she plans to build her job skills and seek employment as a transcriptionist and work with computers.
Volunteers on Saturday included groups from Mount Hermon Baptist Church, Barry’s Grove Baptist Church, Duke and the Legacy Group, all removing garbage, painting, knocking down walls and tearing up carpet.
“It’s fun; it’s a lot of hard work,” said Sean Alexander, 13, of Mount Hermon Baptist Church. “I like a challenge.”
The N.C. 49 Leadership Program from the Legacy Group is creating a family park and picnic area next to the hotel.
“This is a community project designed to leave a lasting legacy in the community,” said Jonathan Lowry, a student in the group. “Our main focus is to help people recognize the underlying beliefs that make people run their lives so they can decide if those beliefs are helping or hindering them, to help them become the best person they can be.”
The group will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the park Sept. 30 and has invited U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Dole.
Despite the progress made in a short time, the Rescue Mission still is seeking volunteers and donations, especially a plumber, electrician and carpet layer. The organization also needs exercise equipment and a walk-in refrigerator or freezer.
Reprinted with permission The Durham Herald Company
Legacy Center Leadership team NC103 extreme makeover, extreme giver project in the community