Mary House may close its doors
<p>Cebrena Trejos talks about her experience at the Mary House since arriving with her nine-year-old daughter in March.</p>
<p>Elizabeth Gonzalez carries her one-year-old son Yomar Lopez through a hallway in the Mary House on Monday. Gonzalez, the house manager, came to St. Vincent de Paul's home for women earlier this year.</p>
<p>Jeff Conroy, executive director for St. Vincent de Paul North Idaho, describes budget woes that are challenging the organization's ability to maintain operations at the Mary House in Coeur d'Alene.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - It was still the right choice.
Regardless if donations fall through, grants dry up, and the home's doors have to close, it has been worth it - if for only six months.
For Cebrena Trejos, the Mary House was the stabilization she needed to reconnect with her daughter after a year bouncing from couch to couch.
"We felt so blessed," Trejos said of the family home on North 19th Street she found through St. Vincent de Paul in March, after fleeing an abusive relationship. "I was so glad to finally be with my daughter again."
But the home, which houses expecting mothers and moms with their kids in need of a place to stay, could be closing its doors.
St. Vincent's can't afford to keep it afloat.
"I'm pretty upset," said St. Vincent Executive Director Jeff Conroy. "People are putting their lives back together and now we're going to have to tell them to do something different."
St. Vincent agreed to take over the home from the Arizona-based group Maggie's Place Jan. 1 after the owner decided to move out in the fall. Maggie's Place was intended for only pregnant women in need of housing, but Conroy opened it up for women with children too. That increased the demand, and within weeks of the expansion it held 5 women with 10 children.
Conroy made the agreement based on funding he had verbally secured from various people around Coeur d'Alene. Since then, those promises have fallen through, and grants, though still being sought, might be too late.
"I don't want to see the place close," said Jennifer Hogue, who moved into the house in April with her boys, Tyler, 4, and Johnathon, 5.
She too ended up in emergency housing after leaving an abusive relationship.
"It's hard moving over and over again with two little kids. I was hoping this would be the last."
Even if the homeless provider could secure a grant to buy the $320,000 house, it still won't be able to keep it afloat. The families stay at the home - tucked away in a residential neighborhood on the east side of town distant from the rest of the St. Vincent campus - for free. Operational costs hit $40,000 a year.
After June 30, Maggie's Place, per the agreement, will begin charging a $1,500 monthly rent. Those fees are unsustainable for North Idaho's largest homeless provider.
"I have heartburn over this," Conroy said.
He broke the news to the families last week, and said he's unsure if the nonprofit has the capacity to absorb the displaced families should they have to move out. "We've never been in a position like this before."
Maggie's Place said Monday it has had discussions with St. Vincent about the financial situation but couldn't comment on what it would do with the property should St. Vincent have to leave.
Without the verbal financial support, Conroy said he doesn't know if they would have taken control of the home. He declined to say who pledged what, but "it was the right thing to do" at the time, since it has taken families fractured through emergency shelter and put them together.
But for the families, even their short stays were worth it. They don't call the two-story house with a sprawling backyard a shelter. They call it a home.
"Without the Mary House I couldn't tell you where me and my kids would be today. It's kind of scary," said Jeri Harless, who lives there with her 13 and 16-year-old kids. "It's helped the people who are just trying to do good by their kids, by supporting them in a good environment and giving them an opportunity to succeed."