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US Nonprofit Working to End Homelessness

Michell has expanded the program beyond just providing beds for the night.

“We do outreach, we do prevention, we do permanent housing, we do transitional housing. We have an education program with all sorts of different things to move people to end their homelessness,” she said.

According to 2015 government data, more than a half-million people in the United States are homeless on any given night.

While the scarcity of affordable housing can be the main reason people experience homelessness, Michell said New Hope is offering them the services they need to change their lives and succeed.

Program to transform the homeless

"Our Out of Poverty program is not just about money," Michell said. "It's about you could be spiritually poor, you could be relationship poor ... you could be educationally poor. So it is focusing on how you get out of this poverty that has brought you to being homeless and find prosperity.”

The program tries to teach the shelter residents self-reliance and work values, and includes courses on planning and personal responsibility.

“I learned I still have opportunity to change it and I can change it," said shelter resident Lewis Webster. "It is just about going forth in doing necessary work to do it. I mean if you really want better, you would do better and that's the frame of mind of me now.”

Webster, who has spent time in jail, said he is confident he'll become a productive member of the community when he leaves the shelter and into a place of his own, in a month.