United Way to help Perryville organization jumpstart warming shelter project

For individuals progressing through addiction recovery, the next step to restoration might come from New Life Mission Inn’s extensive list of counseling and encouragement services. With funding from United Way of Southeast Missouri, a warming shelter will soon be added to the center’s outreach in Perryville, Missouri.

“You just have to be affected by addiction,” New Life Mission Inn clinical therapist Elizabeth Rowe said, adding services also cater to family members.

Rowe said a person in recovery is someone who “has identified with a substance abuse problem and is no longer using.”

New Life Mission Inn is “the step after inpatient,” once an individual has begun to rehabilitate his or her life, she said. But if someone is still actively using an addictive substance, inpatient care will be encouraged.

The center assists clients who are “invested in changing their life,” Rowe said, through mental health counseling, education preparation and recovery coaching. It also provides a community garden that offers an opportunity to interact.

When an addict stops using drugs or alcohol, “there’s little control,” she said.

“We help build that control through services like recovery coaching and anger management,” Rowe said.

Within the last three months, New Life Mission Inn has served 130 people, Rowe said. That translates to roughly 600 annually.

Rowe emphasized the organization is locally funded.

“We do not rely on the United Way,” she said.

The shelter — set to open this fall — will be open nights during the coldest months of winter, Rowe said, and is set to utilize “qualified staff,” providing basic shelter and other needs to the community.

It will be “very resource-centered,” she said.

“We will evaluate the mental health needs and be able to help these individuals,” Rowe said. “We want to be able to meet with someone, sit down and build that relationship, use our therapeutic techniques to motivate them and get them where they need to be.”

She said United Way liked the idea of a warming center, and the organization “also liked that licensed counselors would operate it.”

The funds will be “enough to just get us started, but it’s not enough,” Rowe said, adding she is looking for additional financial support to help bridge the gap.

United Way of Southeast Missouri executive director Elizabeth Shelton said many of the decisions its Community Investment Committee made in selecting new funding partners were based on a community survey.

“Some of the feedback we got regarding income was to offer more mental health resources and more help with basic needs like food and shelter,” she said. “This fulfills both of those.”

It also extends United Way’s outreach in Perryville, Shelton said.

“What really appealed to our volunteers is this warming center offers counseling to help address what has brought that person to that point to begin with,” she said.