Homeless services agency builds partnerships at north St. Louis campus
A job loss and eviction led Mamoudu Lahai and Rose Kamara and their five children to seek shelter.
It was the first time they needed help with housing since arriving in St. Louis more than 10 years ago. Lahai and Kamara initially came to the United States in 2005 as teenagers as refugees from Liberia.
“We were nervous because we used to hear the stories about shelters, but when we got to that shelter,” Kamara said, “it’s like … things are just going, and we were so grateful to witness it. It was better than the stories we hear.”
Lahai and Kamara were the first family to join a pilot program to house immigrant and refugee families at Peter & Paul Community Services’ new Community Campus in the St. Louis Place neighborhood of north St. Louis. The nonprofit organization purchased the former Little Sisters of the Poor residence, a 188,000-square-foot building on a 4.5-acre campus, in April.
Peter & Paul partnered with local immigrant service providers to create the Housing Immigrant Families Coalition and offer short-term housing to immigrant and refugee families without a support system or safe place to sleep at night. A floor with 17 rooms was opened in September; Lahai and Kamara and their children were the first to move in, staying there for about two months.
The family has since received help from several local organizations that work with immigrants and refugees. They recently moved into a rental home in Lemay and received assistance with a security deposit and first month’s rent.
Kamara said she saw God’s hand at work through everything, including finding another car and home furnishings, all of which were lost in the eviction. “We really prayed about the shelter, and it came out better than we imagined,” she said.
The program has served 10 other families in the past three months, and several have moved on to more permanent solutions. CEO Anthony D’Agostino said that additional funding is needed to keep it going beyond a pilot program.
The northside campus has expanded services elsewhere in the past six months, D’Agostino said. “Our goal has been to use the space optimally and get the building up to standards,” he said. “We have spent over $1 million on basic repairs that are deferred maintenance. We have spared no expense … and now we are going out to find the funds to continue and expand the work.”
“This is the largest facility for homeless services in the entire region, and we’re all in,” he said. “We’re completely committed to it, and there’s a huge impact for the community and the clients that we serve. We can continue to grow, but we all need to come together, and we can’t do it alone.”
In late November, Peter & Paul relocated its Positive Directions program from the Dutchtown neighborhood of south St. Louis to the new campus. The transitional housing program offers housing and supportive services to homeless men and women who live with HIV, mental illness and/or substance abuse.
The emergency shelter also relocated from the basement of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Soulard. The year-round program currently serves about 75 homeless single men, with a goal of expanding to 100 spaces.
In September, the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) awarded Peter & Paul a $450,000 grant for an employment training program for the unhoused in St. Louis City. The funding, which came through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), will provide 12 weeks of paid work, including custodial and neighborhood cleanup. About 100 participants will receive support with transitioning to more stable employment.
Meanwhile, renovations have been completed on 15 transitional living apartments and the first residents will move in toward the end of December. Clients will receive clinical and behavioral health services. The program received a $150,000 grant from the Annual Catholic Appeal’s Affordable Housing Fund.
Four floors have been allocated for a transitional housing program through an ongoing partnership with the City of St. Louis. After the Little Sisters of the Poor vacated the building in 2018, the building became a homeless shelter in 2020, an effort in conjunction with city and several organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has since become a transitional housing program, serving about 100 people.
D’Agostino said there are plans to open a clinic on the campus in early 2025 through an agreement with Novus Health. The space is expected to offer clinical and behavioral health services to clients and the community.
With other partnerships on the horizon, D’Agostino said that the campus is shaping itself to become “a model for what can be. We need to keep pressing down on the gas to make all of this work. This is something that is really needed, and I hope this serves as a model to show what can be done and how it can impact the community.”
>> Helping people toward stability
Peter & Paul Community Services was established in 1981 as an ecumenical effort involving Sts. Peter and Paul and St. Vincent de Paul parishes and Trinity Lutheran church. The group started with a winter shelter in the basement of Sts. Peter and Paul, and its programs today continue to be supported by Catholics and dozens of parishes.
Other programs include the Benedict Joseph Labre Center, which serves men and women living with mental illness; the Community CollabARTive art program; and Garfield Place Apartments, which provides permanent supportive housing for men and women who face chronic homelessness. Those programs are located in south St. Louis.
For more information, see www.ppcsinc.org
