Shelter helps keep men off cold streets
Trending
It is no secret that North Dakota winters can be brutal, and that is why Men’s Winter Refuge offers help.
Executive Director Mike Zimmer has been working with the Men’s Winter Refuge since February 2015, which came in the middle of the busy season at the homeless shelter. Open from November to April, the shelter will open this Sunday, Nov. 1.
Zimmer comes from a newspaper background, working for newspapers for 25 years. He had lived in Sidney, Montana, until middle school. His dad, a grocery store manager, was transferred to Glendive, Montana, where Zimmer went to high school.
He was in Minot from 1996 to 1998 and then moved to Billings, Montana, where he worked as an editor from 1998-2014.
Zimmer moved back to North Dakota in 2014. By sheer chance, after getting a job in 2014 at AGT Foods, an agricultural processing plant, he stumbled into the job of executive director at the shelter. He saw an ad that said 'local nonprofit seeking a director with writing experience.' It didn't say it was a homeless shelter or what the writing experience was for, Zimmer said.
The writing experience was later found to be for writing grants, and while he didn't know how to do this, he said he later learned.
Men's Winter Refuge was started by several pastors who wanted to give people a place to stay after losing their homes due to both the 2011 flood and the oil boom that created housing shortages. The pastors stated Minot was too big of a city and too nice of a city to not have a shelter. At first, they used church basements. The house that now serves the Men's Winter Refuge had been used as a domestic violence shelter for years. The house is owned by the city, which charges $1 a year for rent.
Zimmer said his vision for the Men's Winter Refuge is that it have the longevity to remain in Minot for as long as the need exists. He feels the place is doing very well in helping men get to where they need to be. They have had beyond hundreds of success stories over the years. Though this has always been a grant-based and donation-based nonprofit organization, Zimmer said, there’s always a concern at how long the service can be sustained.
When Zimmer speaks of longevity, it is about more than just Men's Winter Refuge. Although he hopes the shelter remains open for the next century, the bigger goal is for Minot to have more shelters. The shelter has only 12 beds, and as Minot continues to grow, so does the homeless population. Zimmer said when they do have full beds, they work with local hotels to see if they can get lodging for the night.
Zimmer also helps the men at each “episode of homelessness” they are in. The intent is to find out what landed them at the shelter and what can get them back up and going again. Because of North Dakota’s winters, Zimmer said, the number one priority is to get the men indoors. When men come to them, the shelter operation wants to make sure they are working. If they aren't, Zimmer tries to find them jobs so they can escape homelessness. This entails seeing what kind of work they can do and what they want to do. If they stay at Men's Winter Refuge long enough, they often can stack paychecks to get a place of their own.
Zimmer said he works with rental agencies to ensure the men can make the deposit and the first month’s rent.
Even though the shelter is only open seasonally, it serves people all year. If someone needs assistance in the middle of the summer, the shelter doesn’t turn people away but will help them get lodging at a local hotel.
The shelter invites people to volunteer and recruits overnight volunteers. When he started, Zimmer said, many of the overnight volunteers were Air Force personnel. Other volunteers brought and served hot meals to the residents every night. In the past four to five years the shelter has utilized a website to help coordinate meal preparation, making Zimmer's job much easier.
As executive director, Zimmer said, a lot of his newspaper experience translated into what he does now. He had been in charge of scheduling and assigning stories and in certain ways, he said, that skill helps him keep things organized in the shelter so everyone knows when the next meal is coming and they don't have to worry. They have structure.
Zimmer also said residents know there are high standards the moment they walk into the Men's Winter Refuge; there are no surprises. There is no favoritism, and even if men aren't looking for shelter, there are other services the shelter can provide, such as access to men's clothing and food, Zimmer said. It offers help with city bus passes and has a gas assistance program that provides a one-time $50 fill-up. Every Wednesday, the shelter gives free rides to food pantries to anyone in the public.
Zimmer makes it clear there are requirements to stay at the refuge. Men must be clean and sober, pass a background check and not have any active warrants or past felonies. But Zimmer said most men who come to the refuge pass the background check.
He said he is grateful for his position. He said his favorite part of the job is seeing men leave the refuge to pay a deposit and first month's rent on an apartment.