Way Station

Key to the success of the mission of the Way Station is the interaction of our Client Care Coordinator (CCC) who oversees the day to day operations working directly with our homeless and housing insecure clients, ensuring their safety and coordinating with other services providers in the area. One of our objectives is not to overlap or duplicate services with these other agencies and as such refer clients to health care providers, substance abuse programs, and town welfare agencies to name a few. What we do provide and which the CCC coordinates is being a low barrier service for immediate needs. These include things such as scheduling showers, providing food appropriate to the client's living conditions, coordinating the donation and distribution of clothing and camping equipment and the purchase of items we provide to our clients at no cost. We serve approximately 36 households comprising 57 individual clients each week.

Client transportation: This includes: Gas cards and bicycles & bicycle repairs. The gas cards in denominations of $20 or $50 for those living in their cars in the winter, not only provide transportation to work and appointments but also allows for some amount of shelter. 527 Regular gas cards and 183 Cold Weather Gas cards were issued.

Way Station remains affiliated with the National Organization, Circles USA. Circles provides leadership in a proven method of helping guide individuals out of poverty to thriving. Annual membership dues provide local step by step guides and local participant training to build the program so it will succeed. We are now at the phase where we are seeking grants for the operation of the program and enlisting volunteers who will act as support to those clients participating to improve their situation. This is being led by a part time employee focused on gearing up the program.

Communication.. We provide phones and phone cards to stay in contact with our clients which number from 35-50 at any given time. We check on their well being and determine what services they need. We found the clients were abusing our generosity so we have become stricter with our clients, issuing only 1 phone/year, primarily to new clients. We issued 42 phones and 238 phone cards to clients in 2024.

Camping Supplies. For those clients who do not qualify for hotel stays, Way Station can provide a one time issue of camping supplies consisting of a cold weather tent and cold weather sleeping bags. The smaller 2024-25 cold weather grant made us prioritize putting the grant funds toward hotel rooms since we experienced an early series of extreme cold spells. We did purchase cold weather sleeping bags and tents using donations. Although the grants covered the winter months, Nov 2023-April 2024 and Dec 2024-Apr 2025, numbers presented here reflect 2024 information only

Laundry capability. Although we have washer and dryer capability at our facility, beginning during COVID our clients were not permitted to use them so we continued to issue prepaid laundry cards along with detergent for local laundromats. In 2024 we expanded the laundry program to another town in our service area so those clients wouldn't have to drive distances to get this service. This enabled sanitary living conditions and a presentable appearance for work or appointments. We provided over 380 laundry cards.

Financial Assistance or Stabilization. We provide one time payments to clients in emergency situations which could mean the difference between survival or devastation. Examples include covering a security deposit for a long sought after rental apartment or replacing a car battery or providing very short term temporary housing. We assisted 5 clients in 2024.

Groceries. We coordinate with a local food pantry and deliver fresh food to an average of 10 households each week. We are now qualified to access the state food bank located in Berlin, NH. In 2024 we received 5134 lbs of shelf stable food which the food bank valued at $10,122 thereby saving the Way Station funds while providing much more food to our clients. For those clients who are couch surfing or living in their cars or camping or who just need supplemental foodstuffs we provide nonperishable items from the food bank which are eatable from the can. We had over 384 instances of providing nonperishable food in 2024.