After three years, a homeless shelter for men is set to open in Carrollton the second week of December, right after the house is approved for occupancy.

Coordinated by Impact International, the shelter is truly a community project. The house at 415 Newnan Road was donated by Carrollton and is owned by the Carrollton Housing Authority. The renovations were done by volunteer labor, organized by Carrollton resident Melvin Hooker; the beds for the future residents were built by students of the Carroll County Technical Education Center; and the funding for the project has come from donations, gifts and local grants.

President of Impact International Incorporated, Kathy Parsons said the shelter called 415 Hope will be the only men’s shelter in a 10-county area.

“We were just getting call after call after call,” Parsons said of her reasons to get involved in the project. “We just didn’t have any place to put single men. There were places for women and children, but there was nothing for men.”

With the weather getting colder, temperatures dipping below freezing some nights, it is getting harder for those living on the streets. Currently, homeless men in Carrollton have to be sent to LaGrange or Atlanta to find shelter, Parsons said.

“And a lot of them don’t want to go and don’t have a way to get there,” she added.



This shelter will be filling that void in the community, Parsons said.

Hooker said he got involved through the housing authority, volunteering his expertise for three years on his days off from his job at Home Depot, because he “just wanted to do something.”

“We had about six or eight contractors, remodelers-contractors, that donated their time for the three years, also,” Hooker said. “Same ones. I would call, when I had a day off at Home Depot, I would call them on the phone and set it up and tell them we’d have a work day and they would show up and volunteer all their time with their

men.”

Once it is up and running, the shelter will house up to 12 men and a couple, who will serve as the resident directors. “You don’t have to be accredited, but we want to be,” Parsons said, explaining that the shelter will follow the standards of the Georgia Coalition to End Homelessness.

After visits to shelters all over the area, organizers decided on a 90-day program for the men, about the average stay for the other shelters. The shelter will work with the Department of Labor to provide job training for residents of the shelter. However, the length of stay and the organization of the program may change after the shelter opens if it is not practical for the residents.

“We don’t know what our population will look like,” Parsons said. “We’ve done some research on the homeless population, what statistics they have, we’ve looked out. We’re not sure if our homeless will match those statistics.”

Since this is a brand-new shelter in the area, there is no history for organizers to build on, no statistics for this area, Parsons said.

“What we hope to see is that they will find permanent housing and a job,” she said. “If someone is homeless and already working, then us providing them a place for 90 days will help them save money.”

The organization of the shelter’s program will be tailored to accomplish that end, including working with the housing authorities, the department of labor and a psychiatrist who has volunteered to help out if needed. The shelter will also do random drug testing to weed out those on drugs and alcohol, whom the shelter is not equipped to handle.

“We’re not sure how it’s all going to work yet,” she said. “We’re not sure 90 days is enough. ...But if it’s not enough we’ll adjust it.”