The House of Neighborly Service faces a growing demand for its two emergency day and night shelters.

Night shelter assistance needed The House of Neighborly Service seeks additional churches to offer night shelters for both the 137 Homeless Connection and the Angel House and for volunteers to provide evening meals. For details, contact the nonprofit at 667-4939 or visit www.honservice.org.

Angel House serves homeless families and their children and the 137 Homeless Connection serves homeless individuals, giving them a meal and a place to stay over night in churches on a rotating basis. Currently, 10 churches work with each program.

“I’m concerned that we’re going to go over the max. Our numbers are so high right now during the summer season. That’s a trend everywhere,” said Doug Ashbaugh, homeless program manager for the 137 Homeless Connection.

Angel House hasn’t seen an increase in numbers served but in the number of people on its waiting list to get temporary housing, in which families can access the day center at the HNS Life Center and stay in the churches for up to four months.

In 2015, the housing program served 20 families, or 66 individuals, compared with 19 families and 78 individuals in 2014 and 18 families and 61 individuals in 2013.

At present, there are 15 families on the waiting list for Angel House, Magrum said.

“We don’t have the capacity to take more but more people are applying,” said Glorie Magrum, executive director of the House of Neighborly Service.

The 137 Homeless Connection saw a steady increase in stays over the past three years, growing from 225 unduplicated individuals in 2013 to 283 individuals in 2014 and 335 individuals in 2015.

Already during the first half of 2016, the 137 Homeless Connection has served 242 individuals, compared with 187 individuals during the same time period last year for about a 30 percent increase.

“As we head into winter, individuals might be seeking more services,” Magrum said. “The summertime is typically when they don’t need the day services as much. The real gage happens when the weather drops.”

The Angel House shelter operates year round, while the shelter at the 137 Homeless Connection operates during the winter months from Nov. 15 to March 31, opening for inclement weather or when the temperature is 20 degrees or below.

The inclement weather shelter will officially open this year on Nov. 13.

The shelter serves as many as 30 homeless individuals, who can stay as long as they provide four hours of community service a week, pro-rated if they work part time. Twenty hours of work or more covers the four-hour requirement, while working 10 hours reduces the requirement to two hours.

Priority is given to Loveland residents and to those who do the community service. If those seeking shelter are new to the area and don’t know how the 137 Homeless Connection program works, they get a waiver on the community service requirement for one week.

Last year, the inclement weather shelter was open for 123 nights.

On average, 62 percent of the individuals who stay at the shelter come for less than 10 days, typically looking for a source of long-term shelter to stay every night, Magrum said.

Ashbaugh expects to see even more people coming to the shelter this winter.

“There’s increases everywhere. …. That leads me to be concerned our numbers will be high this year,” Ashbaugh said, attributing possible causes as high rents, increased cost of living and lack of living wage jobs. “It’s extremely hard for a homeless person to get out of homelessness, because rents have skyrocketed because the supply of available rentals is extremely low. Even if they’re working, they don’t qualify for many rentals because their income isn’t high enough. They may qualify for an extra bedroom, but those are hard to find.”

Part of the increase can be attributed to those finding work but not finding housing coupled with those entering homeless, causing the numbers to grow even more, Ashbaugh said.

“The cost of living increase is a very, very dangerous situation for our community as far as the number of people in need,” Ashbaugh said.

Shelley Widhalm: 970-699-5408, swidhalm@reporter-herald.com, twitter.com/ShelleyWidhalm