Poplar Bluff needs family shelter

I was recently visited by a man at our office, his name I can’t say. He was slightly frail and soft-spoken. He came in to tell me how thankful he was for the resources he had utilized in the area like the Bread Shed and a local church, but more importantly how the people he rented from had not removed him from his home since he had been unable to pay his rent for the past three months.

He said he was diagnosed with cancer after returning home from prison. He was incarcerated for drugs, which he admittedly said he got heavily involved in after his mother shot herself in his presence. While incarcerated, his brother did the same.

He wept in the office as he told me his story. I will admit it made me cry a little too.

The man said he had concern for the many homeless in the area and felt he was close to joining them himself. As he spoke, I thought to myself, how would I handle the things he described? How would I cope, where would I turn?

Then, I remembered in this area there are no family shelters. There is a battered women’s shelter, which is a great asset to the community, but there is no shelter equipped to handle the needs of the families in the surrounding community and the growing homeless population. There are no shelters that can or will take an entire family in this area to my knowledge.

I feel this is something that urgently needs to be addressed. I look around at all the empty and otherwise unoccupied buildings in the area and my imagination takes over, I see the potential in so many places.

I realize that treatment centers and shelters are not exactly ideal neighbors, but I believe a problem left unaddressed, will only fester into a larger issue in the coming months and years.

I have met a multitude of empathetic, kind, compassionate souls in the area since starting my journey in the newspaper business that I know have the heart for a project such as this.

I would love to take part in any organization in the area that chooses to take on this task.

Misty DeJournett is a staff writer at the Daily American Republic. She can be reached at mdejournett@darnews.com.