Stepping Stone Shelter

Thirty night residential shelter for the homeless.

Stepping Stone Shelter is the only residential shelter in southwest Kansas. Other shelters in the region offer only a few days stay with a bed and a meal but no other services. We receive referrals from area hospitals, area agencies, as well as the local Police/Sheriff and community corrections. The most common referrals come from friends and family members.

We offer a 30 day minimum stay though that can be, and is, extended based upon the individual needs of the client. Our average stay has increased to over 16 days and after omitting those here less than 5 days the average stay went up to 21 days. We believe this coupled with a reduced return rate indicates we are fulfilling our mission statement to prevent future homelessness. We also furnish clothing, meals and hygiene items. Our case management has become the backbone of our endeavor to help those we serve. We network with agencies to find other services available to our clients. Because of the amount of cooking and client supervision required, we are staffed with three eight hour shifts every day.

Donations from the community have increased tremendously. We provide as many items as possible to our clients for their new home when they leave. Overflow items are used for "Sharing Saturday" a free program we started several years ago. We now see families on Saturday at 6:00 AM waiting for the boxes of goods and continued traffic until the boxes are removed on Sunday afternoon.