Hi, it's Kristen here with LDS Charities, and today I am with Matt Minkevitch, who is the executive director of the Road Home. And we're currently in their Salt Lake location. Matt, tell me a little bit about this room we're standing in. It's really very interesting. Well, this room reflects our kids' touch, and so scores of children have participated in arts projects that we've conducted here. And around the walls here, you'll see a project that took place the Christmas before last, where we had some professional artists come in and make the design, and then the kids filled in all of the space. Over here, this was a very involved collaboration that involved Salt Lake Art Center, a professional stained-glass artist, and 31 different children working on these different stained-glass panels--helped to design and actually create these stained-glass panels under the close supervision of an artist. This is a reflection of how to not just transform a space here and make it more inviting, but to transform a child's stay in shelter. We want to make sure that we provide them as quality a stay as possible and help to enhance what is otherwise a traumatic episode--give them the opportunity to express themselves in a way that is healthy and to carry that memory forward, that perhaps once they've turned the page from homelessness into housing, this is a fond memory to which they can hold on to. And it's something that is, of course, profoundly meaningful to us as well. Awesome. I'd love to see more of your space here. Sure, let's go. So why don't you show me a little bit about the rest of the--now, I understand that the families are mostly in Midvale now, so this is primarily for single men and women. Yes, forgive me. That is true. We have--hi. Hi. We have our families staying in our Midvale facility, which is a newly constructed facility. It's just about two years old. We have a small partnership with the state of Utah for families; when we exceed 300 people in our family shelter, we have space for families in motels as well. So this is where families used to stay in the olden days, and we've converted some of these into case managers' offices so that we can have some services for the people who are coming here. But also we've converted these rooms to better accommodate women. Now, those women were coming with us, coming into the shelter and staying with us, but they were sleeping in common areas on cots. And this was a way that we could qualitatively improve their stay. A little more privacy. A little more privacy. We still have-- Do you mind if we peek in one? I'm just curious. Sure. And I think it's important to realize--one of the misconceptions that people have is, shelter is this luxury place. And I don't think that's a widely held perception, but that's one that a quick look around here can dispel quite quickly. Now, we keep it very clean, and we do everything we can to do that. This is better than sleeping in the lobby, for sure. And you have more beds available now. And we have more beds available now. We have over 100 women that will be able to stay with us in beds who were otherwise sleeping in cots. And so we appreciate having that opportunity to transform our service delivery. We will have about 1,200 people staying with us tonight in shelter. The majority will be here at the downtown shelter. There'll also be over 300 that are staying in Midvale and in motels with our families, and there'll be about 80 men who are staying at St. Vincent de Paul through a partnership that we have with Catholic Community Services. And Catholic Community Services, during the colder months and the wetter months at this time of year, they work with us so that we can provide some additional space for some gentlemen who are not in any condition to be sleeping outside. Sure. So I noticed, too, you guys have a library you're putting in. So you're really renovating this space to kind of accommodate it and make it more comfortable for the women. What are some other common misconceptions that people have about the homeless population? Well, and I understand that not everyone thinks this way, but the notion that people staying at shelter--"People experiencing homelessness are lazy" is something that is out there, unfortunately. People are working very hard. People are working very hard to overcome homelessness. Yeah. They're going out and getting their identifications; they're taking care of paperwork; they're looking for places. Moms and dads are working diligently to make sure they get their kids to school, that they're looking for work if they don't have it. They're looking for apartments if they do have work. There's a lot of work involved for the people who are coming through here and utilizing the facility. The other thing is that--another misconception is that most of the people who are staying here sort of live here and are in this constant state of homelessness, when in fact it's only a small percentage of people who are in that category--people with mental illness or physical or emotional disabilities that constrain them to a life of chronic homelessness. Now, that only represents 10 to 13 percent of the total number of people who come through shelters, not only here at the Road Home but across America as well. The vast majority of people who are in this shelter are going to have one or two very brief episodes of homelessness and move on and never come back to shelter again. Yeah, that is something that I don't think--like you mentioned, most people don't know that. Because I think--what is it? There's a percentage of people that are here less than six months, right? Before they're able to go and find something more stable. Oh, that's about 87 percent of-- Yeah. Huge percentage. And that goes back tens of years, actually, that data. And again, that's consistent with data nationwide as well. Yeah. OK, so tell me where we are now. We're moving through a very small pantry here. It's small for a reason. One is because we only want to keep enough inventory on hand to just help someone through a pinch or if they're moving out. And we're not trying to provide for all the food needs for everyone that's coming through shelter. We partner with our friends at Catholic Community Services that provide meals. But if someone's moving out or they've just come into shelter and they have absolutely nothing and are hungry, we want to make sure that we have some items on hand. Yeah, I wanted to point this out because I recognize this brand. I think you would. So these come from the bishops' storehouse. Yep, and as do other things. We have a partnership with bishops' storehouse, and so Church membership that volunteer their time--their efforts will benefit not only people here, but I worked in Ogden and saw the benefit that they provided hundreds of households up in Ogden. We operated a community pantry up there before I worked here. And so there are just so many ways in which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its faithful are helping us--just too many ways to count, but some very important ways. And over here is where we keep clothing that we receive, and we move through a lot of community donations, a good amount of which go directly to DI. We have a pot outside, and we'll get that stuff-- Because you can't keep it here, because it's not functional. No, we would spend all our time sorting through donations. We can get stuff over to DI, and that partnership with Deseret Industries is incredibly important to us. Plus, we have people coming here who are cold and wet and need a change of clothes. So clothing is a great big priority for us. Everything from undergarments to overcoats and everything in between is something that people coming to us may need immediately. And so we're going through--we have a system here where we work in partnership with the executive team at O.C. Tanner that helped us to design this in such a way that it is highly efficient and meets our number-one priorities. Church volunteers, for example, that go to Welfare Square and help produce hygiene kits--those hygiene kits, a number of them will find their way here, and they are incredibly useful. The people who are using shelter are quite grateful for those donations and use them well. Awesome. I love this because it's just really efficient for what you need, right? So you can use more of the space to shelter people. And you have coats just hanging here for anybody that needs to come grab something, sorted into different sizes. So that's really neat. So here, I'm going to grab this. So this, I know, comes from LDS Charities. So tell me the importance and the significance of this blanket. Well, these blankets that are provided through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are absolutely fundamental. They're absolutely essential. It is one of the most critical contributions that we receive from the community. We'll have over 8,000 people coming through our shelters. We will provide over 400,000 nights of shelter to people in need. We don't have that many blankets, nor do we have the kind of budget that could purchase that many blankets to help those who are coming to us. So this represents one of the most important contributions that the Church provides us. People who are cold and are leaving shelter can take these blankets with them when needed. We're also washing and reusing these blankets on a daily basis. We'll wash over 1,300 blankets a day. But they have a very symbolic importance as well--it's not symbolic. Frankly, it's spiritual, and people who are coming to us can be cold and wet and feel abandoned. They're not in a good place in their life. And by helping someone to come in and feel welcome and help them to warm themselves and to feel dry is the first step in a person recognizing that he or she is not worthless but is worthwhile--that he or she has value and is important enough to be provided warmth and comfort and safety. And that really is the heart of our mission. And so the heart of our mission aligns with the heart and spirit of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it's reflected in something as simple and something that we can so easily take for granted as a warm blanket. But it's something that I will never take for granted any more than I would take for granted anyone who comes through our doors. I've been here for 18 years, and I have yet to meet the person that was not worth our love and our support and our warmth. So on the part of all of us at the Road Home, I just want to thank the faithful of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for providing us the privilege to serve and this critical part of that. Thank you. You have me tearing up to know how significant this is for people coming here that just need a little help. So I'll tell you the number-one question that we get, is "How can I help?" How can people do volunteer service here? Are there volunteer opportunities for people at the Road Home, and what kind of things do you guys need? First of all, yes. We love volunteers. We could not exist without volunteers. I mentioned that even volunteering at Welfare Square to create some of the commodities from which we benefit is helpful. But you can come down here and volunteer. We provide meals. Volunteer groups come down and do dinners for our women and our men and for our families with kids out in Midvale. So volunteers are very helpful. Sorting in the warehouse is another important function the volunteers do, but there are scads of other things. Oh, my goodness, Eagle Scout projects galore. So if you're an Eagle Scout thinking of what to do, give us a call, or you can log on to our website for more information. Great. Well, thank you so much for your time and for your partnership. And I am so grateful we got to come down and see what you guys are doing and see the inside of the building and all the wonderful services you're providing. If you guys have any additional questions, please feel free to like our Facebook page, as well as the Road Home's Facebook page. And we'll have more information in the post text.