Home Sweet Home Ministries [HSHM] is getting ready to fill Bloomington’s first non-congregate shelter village, The Bridge, with residents in a few months.
The Bridge will consist of 48 sleeping cabins able to accommodate up to 56 adults; a community building with a kitchen, living room area and offices for service providers; and a bathhouse.
The shelter village is designed for people who are currently living outside in Bloomington-Normal.
HSHM CEO Matt Burgess said he considered the following when determining who will stay in the shelter village:
- Have they tried to get help and it has not worked?
- Are they currently dealing with mental health or substance use concerns?
- Are they somebody with a health condition?
- Do they have something else that makes them vulnerable or at risk to be unsheltered?
“We're going to be prioritizing that group of people first,” Burgess said. “So we're trying to bring in those who are in most need of this service as our priority population.”
HSHM’s street outreach team, the Salvation Army and The Junction community center have been spreading the word about the shelter village to make sure those living outside know they qualify to become a resident.
“We have no shortage of people who already know about The Bridge and are already saying, ‘How do I get on the list? I want to be on the list,’” Burgess said. “And we've said, ‘You are who we are building this for. If you come in, we will have a place for you.”
Bridging the gap for homelessness
The U.S. has seen an increase in homelessness since 2017, with a significant increase since 2023.
In 2024, a total of 771,480 people, or about 23 of every 10,000 people in the US, experienced homelessness to some capacity across the country.
Lack of affordable housing, limited housing assistance programs, low incomes and weak safety nets after life events are the leading causes of homelessness in the U.S., and Bloomington-Normal is no exception.
“We're really emphasizing that we want to make [The Bridge] a platform where people can get the help that they're not getting right now,” Burgess said.
Inside the community building at The Bridge will be offices for partner organizations to help residents with their housing barriers.
Chestnut Health Systems, Center for Human Services, Center for Youth and Family Solutions, Mid Central Community Action, Project Oz, Bridgeway, the Salvation Army, and PATH have all committed to providing on-site services.
Having all of these service providers in one spot is an important piece to the puzzle of leading people into stable housing. For people currently sheltered at HSHM, they have to be sent all over town to receive services at those agencies.
“It's going to be a super convenient opportunity for people to engage in services that they are not engaging in right now, either due to transportation or navigation or energy or concentration,” Burgess said. “All of these things that prevent people from getting from point A to point B.”
Rules and regulations
In order for people to stay at The Bridge and have easy access to the service providers on site, there are rules HSHM has set in its residential agreement.
Some of the rules in the residential agreement include:
- Residents cannot be a danger to themselves or others.
- Residents must do their part to help upkeep their cabin.
- Residents cannot possess or use drugs or alcohol on site. A “no questions asked” amnesty box will be provided outside of the community for residents to dispose of any drug paraphernalia before entering.
- Unapproved visitors are not welcome on site. Pastors, recovery sponsors, family members and similar types of visitors can be pre-approved to meet in the community building.
- Pre-approved visitors are not allowed in the sleeping cabins.
- There will be no set curfew for residents, they can come and go according to their schedules.
The Bridge is designed to be a low-barrier shelter since the other homeless shelters in town have some higher barriers to entry.
For example, the Salvation Army requires residents to be sober and HSHM’s current shelter also requires sobriety and needs residents to pass a background check with no previous violent criminal offenses. Both shelters also require a form of ID, which is difficult for people living unhoused to keep track of.
At The Bridge, residents do not have to be sober and can safely go to their sleeping cabin while intoxicated or under the influence. However, as stated in the rules, drugs and alcohol are not permitted on site.
“The only reason we would draw a line on that is if they're being dangerous to themselves or to somebody else, if their behavior is out of control,” Burgess said.
The only strict regulation is that residents cannot have a previous sexual offense.
At the moment, Burgess said residents having a form of ID is preferred, but not required. The staff is prepared for people to present an old ID or something else that reasonably verifies the individual’s identity.
Burgess added that their street outreach team has been working with some people living outside enough to know those individuals are who they say they are.
If someone comes to The Bridge without a form of ID, that will be one of the first orders of business the staff will work on with them.
When The Bridge starts filling with residents, safety is the biggest priority. HSHM staff will be present 24 hours a day and conduct regular inspections of the sleeping cabins to make sure cleanliness standards are met and no contraband is on site.
The property will also be under 24-hour camera surveillance so that footage can be reviewed or given to police if there is an incident.
New housing model for the community
HSHM has been working closely with Catalyst Construction to make The Bridge come to life.
“I was really drawn to this concept,” said Robbie Osenga with Catalyst Construction. “I believe there's actually some principles in this that could be applied into other housing developments in our community — living more densely, but creating a neighborhood-feel.”
Tiny home communities are a proven housing model across the country, and Osenga said he’d love to employ more of those here in our community.
The Bridge will, hopefully, give individuals currently living outside a sense of dignity with the design choices for the community, including varying home exterior colors and meaningful street names.
“We want it to feel like a home, like a neighborhood,” Osenga said. “And we want them to each have their own sense of individual space. There's a lot of value in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, of having your own door [and] the ability to control your own temperature.”
Each street in The Bridge will be named after the nine fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
“They'll be able to say, ‘I'm the first blue house on the left on Patience [street],” Osenga said. “And be able to say, ‘That's where I'm living,’ and all of that matters.”
Osenga has been working tirelessly to move housing developments forward and has met a lot of challenges and resistance. Osenga said he walked away from a lot of community meetings feeling pretty low, but it led him to get to the bottom of affordable housing issues.
“So is [The Bridge] a passion project? Absolutely,” Osenga said. “I believe in the value of every single human, that they're created with purpose and potential. And so whether or not Catalyst would have had anything to do with this project, I was going to help.”
Burgess said The Bridge isn’t going to replace permanent housing, it is meant to act as a bridge between homelessness and housing.
It’s difficult to predict how long people will stay in a shelter model completely new to Bloomington-Normal, but Burgess expects residents will stay on average four to six months, based on HSHM’s current shelter patterns.
“We know that working with people is never a 100% [perfect] thing, [or] that we're going to get completely positive outcomes,” Burgess said. “But each one of the people who are stuck outside right now who are literally our neighbors in this community, they're worth it if it's going to be successful for them.”
Osenga said he loves all of the conversations happening in the community because of this project.
“I've had the privilege of getting out and speaking in the community about this project with community groups, Rotary groups, young people in their classrooms at high schools and middle schools, and consistently I have just been really encouraged,” Osenga said. “Most people are asking, ‘How can I help?’”
True to the business’s name, Osenga said, “I’m really hopeful that The Bridge is a catalyst for more innovative, collaborative thinking on how we can meet the housing needs of our community and set an example for other communities.”
