Two-day-old Emma, still wearing her pink-striped hospital cap, slept cradled in her mother’s arms in their darkened room. Blue Christmas lights wrapped around a metal, military-style bunk bed served as her nightlight.
Emma was born at Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, but her first weeks of life will be spent at Catholic Charities’ Samaritan House while her mother and father get back on their feet.
Her mom, Courtney McCollam, 24, says she and her husband, Steven, along with their son, Blake, lost their apartment a few months ago after the company Steven worked for went out of business. They lived in a hotel on Colfax for a while, but the cost, and the dining out that often comes with hotel living, ate up all of their savings.
That brought them to the doorstep of the Samaritan House at 2301 Lawrence St. in downtown Denver. It’s a three-story brick structure that, to the uninitiated, looks like any other cold, clinical city building.
But inside, they found a friendly staff and a comfortable web of services, ranging from job training advice and money management skills to nutrition courses.
The Samaritan House offers the proverbial hand up, not a handout. It isn’t a place to bunk for the night, to sleep off a stupor, or while away a day.
Every night, 350 people call it home, and each has a story of how they got where they are. Drugs. Mental illness. Job loss. Outrageous medical bills.
The shelter, the largest in the Rocky Mountain region, accepts families and single men and women. (It has 126 beds for men, 48 for women and 21 small rooms for families. An overflow area will sleep another 100 men.)
No matter how they got there, the goal is to get residents out within 120 days.
“We try to show people how they can get back into the real world … help them get back into the community,” said Art Dutcher, associate director.
Accepting a bed at Samaritan House also means accepting a certain amount of responsibility. There are rules: a strict zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol; a 9:30 p.m. curfew; mandatory chores, such as sweeping the floor or helping prepare dinner; and attending housing courses and a “life skills” class.
“Our chief expectation is that you will make a firm commitment to changing your life in a positive direction,” residents are told during orientation.
Operating a shelter of this magnitude isn’t cheap. The $2.5 million budget, more than $6,000 a day, comes mostly from private donations, with a small amount given by the city of Denver and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The agency has applied for a grant from this year’s Post-News Season To Share campaign.
Since Hurricane Katrina in late August, Samaritan House has seen a 45 percent drop in donations over last year.
“It’s been a tremendous amount of fallout,” said the Rev. John Lager, director of Samaritan House.
“And in the last two years, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in first-time homeless families.”
Nearly half of the people they serve are first-time homeless, people like Courtney McCollam, who says “everything just fell behind” when her husband lost his job.
But he’s working again, and Samaritan House gives them a chance to save some money and develop money-management skills, so they don’t have to return.
The idea, especially for families, is that they “leave feeling more whole than they came,” said staffer Gilana Rivkin.