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After 23 years, grim finances shutter doors of New Visions day shelter in Camden

A Camden day shelter that served about 130 people daily closed on Friday, leaving nearby social service agencies that assist the city's homeless population scrambling to fill the gap.

Charities in Camden are scrambling to increase their resources for the city's homeless population after New Visions day shelter abruptly announced its Friday closure earlier in June. The shelter opened its doors to up to 150 people daily, offering food, a place to shower, a mailing address, and social services. Now, other agencies are worried about the short-term needs of the shelter's clients being met, Friday June 22, 2018.
Charities in Camden are scrambling to increase their resources for the city's homeless population after New Visions day shelter abruptly announced its Friday closure earlier in June. The shelter opened its doors to up to 150 people daily, offering food, a place to shower, a mailing address, and social services. Now, other agencies are worried about the short-term needs of the shelter's clients being met, Friday June 22, 2018.Read moreDavid Swanson

A Camden day shelter that served about 130 people daily closed Friday, leaving nearby social service agencies that assist the city's homeless population scrambling to fill the gap.

In a statement on its website, New Visions Homeless Day Shelter, in Bergen Square next to I-676, cited "limited resources" as the reason for the closure. Lutheran Social Ministries of New Jersey, which has run New Visions since 2009 and continues to operate a number of other social services throughout the state, said the organization's financial situation was a result of multiple factors, including reductions in donations and increasing expenses.

"Our deficits have been increasing over the years. … We could just not make ends meet," said Colleen Frankenfield, president and CEO of Lutheran Social Ministries of New Jersey. "How do you spread the dollar?"

The not-for-profit's surplus was $1.78 million in 2012, according to Form 990s filed with the IRS. By 2016, Lutheran Social Ministries of New Jersey was in the red by more than $100,000, according to the forms. Frankenfield's compensation was listed as $417,394 in 2016, according to that year's filing, the most recent available.

Frankenfield said the organization announced the shelter's closing in early June, but declined to comment on when its board of directors reached the decision. Before shutting down, she said, New Visions contacted other agencies and met with each client individually to map out a transition plan.

"There are a lot more shelters in Camden than anyone realizes," Frankenfield said. "Camden is a city that needs a lot of attention. … There are significant resources."

New Visions opened on Atlantic Avenue in 2014 after leaving its former location in a church on Stevens Street. The shelter was originally incorporated in 1995, merging three Camden social service agencies. Open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., New Visions served breakfast and lunch and offered access to showers, clothing, laundry machines, mailboxes, and a number of social services.

Now, other centers in the area are working to expand resources for those displaced.

Joseph's House, a drop-in night shelter next door that serves 90 people, is expanding its hours into the morning to assist its roughly 30 patrons who use New Visions during the day, said executive director John Klein. The shelter plans to hire additional staff to help operate from 8 a.m. to noon during the day shift and 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. during the night shift.

"You better believe this has been the topic of conversation for the past few weeks," Klein said. "We need to supplement staff for those extra hours."

Some of New Vision's services overlapped with the public library system, where some of the homeless population goes during the day to use computers for job searches and to escape extreme weather.

Rebecca Fuller, a spokeswoman for Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, said her organization runs a Give Hope program in which volunteers walk around the city connecting homeless men and women on the streets with services. With New Visions closing, those volunteers will likely circle around Atlantic Avenue to offer guidance.

"They know where the need is greatest," Fuller said. "They know the hot spots."

Camden County spokesman Dan Keashen said New Visions contacted county officials about the closure less than two weeks ago, not providing the city and other social services time to create a contingency plan for those left without daytime resources.

The county has been acting as a facilitator among a number of agencies to decide how to address the gap. Keashen said Respond Inc., a Camden charity with a homeless day center, will be providing more access to showers and case management in the wake of New Visions' closing.

"This was unseen," Keashen said. "Lutheran Social Ministries didn't provide any time for us to compensate for the loss of their services."

Vince Basara, a spokesman for the city, said the city was notified two weeks ago that New Visions was shutting down.

Lutheran Social Ministries strongly denied it did not offer fair warning of its departure from Atlantic Avenue, saying county and city officials were notified earlier than mid-June.

But others were caught off guard as well, including Danielle Jimoh, a former longtime volunteer and New Visions shelter supervisor until 2011. She is now office administrator at Camden Lutheran Housing Corp., a agency that rehabs and constructs housing for the city's low-income residents. Her mother worked at New Visions as executive director in 1993, when it was called Frank's Place, and left in 2008.

Jimoh learned New Visions was closing this week from a homeless friend who contacted her. She rushed to the shelter to say goodbye to old friends on Thursday.

"It was devastating," she said of the shuttered shelter. "They'll [the homeless] have to do what they do to survive. … Now it's getting hot. … It will be tough."

Money problems, Jimoh said, were clear when she left in 2012. Jimoh said funding had dried up for her position and New Visions did not hire a replacement.

Ruth Morgenroth, executive director of the Interfaith Homeless Outreach Council, said the organization had used space at 555 Atlantic Ave. donated by New Visions. The council has moved out of the building to Lawnside.

Since 2014, Morgenroth and other volunteers from St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Cherry Hill served breakfast once a month at New Visions. It's a place she says many go to escape the blistering heat or freezing winters, and one of the few places the homeless can regularly shower and eat breakfast in Camden.

Now that the shelter has closed, Morgenroth fears a spike in overdoses in Camden.

"People have overdosed in New Visions," she said. "But the people who overdose there don't die, because 911 is called. … Now they'll be shooting up under bridges and in abandoned houses. There might be an uptick."​