Delaware’s Hope Center Tackles Homelessness With a ‘Humane, Dignified’ Approach

A Delaware housing complex originally built as emergency shelter could offer a useful model as an “ecosystem of care,” writes Frances Nguyen in a Shelterforce article republished in Next City. “In addition to offering case management and mental health services on site, the center took advantage of its space to accommodate a full medical practice—run by ChristianaCare, the state’s largest hospital system—on one of its floors.”

The Hope Center is one of the largest shelters on the East Coast, with 185 available rooms and roughly 360 clients on any given night. According to Nguyen, “The center has partnerships with local groups to support those families that have school-aged children—including with a network of charter schools in the area, who refer families enrolled in their schools and pay for up to a 90-day stay for them—as well as with the Delaware Division of Family Services, which serves families at risk of losing their children due to their homelessness.”

The housing is pet-friendly and also offers on-site veterinary services, the only shelter in Delaware to do so. And while it primarily serves as an emergency shelter, some residents have lived there for over a year. To assist these residents, the shelter just opened its first supportive housing units, which will occupy two floors of the building and house veterans and people classified as “chronically homeless.”

As Nguyen explains, “Part of the Hope Center’s mission is to not only challenge society’s perception of who the most vulnerable members of their community are, but also to imagine a different approach to tackling homelessness—one that is humane and dignified, and applies resources where they’re most needed.”