The Manchester Homeless Service Center is getting ready to close at the end of this month.
The shelter accepts all comers—people with or without substance abuse problems. It serves about 70 people a day, and that number doubles during colder months.
It had been struggling financially since private foundations cut funding earlier this year.
Rich Doyle is Executive Director of Helping Hands, which owns the building that houses the shelter. He says the demand for homeless shelters that meet the needs of people with substance abuse and mental health problems exceeds supply.
"If we want to end homelessness, a big part of that is addressing those issues better," Doyle says. "That’s not to say that every individual who’s homeless, that’s there issue, but there is a preponderance of those two main root causes within the homeless population."
The United Way is funding the center through the end of this month.
