A Southern Indiana homeless shelter is hoping New Albany will kick in funding to support its operations.
Jim Moon, president at Catalyst Rescue Mission, asked the New Albany City Council for $50,000 annually at its most recent meeting. The request came after he presented information on shelter operations and cost, and explained how they help people from New Albany.
In 2024, the Jeffersonville-based shelter served more than 730 unduplicated clients from across the area. According to Moon, around a quarter were from New Albany.
He said it costs more than $116,000 per year to serve New Albany residents. Their average length of stay is 19 days.
The day he presented to the council, Moon said a case manager had helped a New Albany resident get a birth certificate and got two others into treatment. They got another person into Project 180, an addiction recovery program through LifeSpring Health Systems for people leaving jail.
“I don't think $50,000 is a lot to have a place that you could say, ‘We do have a solution to the homeless problem in New Albany,’” Moon said to the council.
Catalyst provides emergency shelter, along with case management for those who are interested. “And then we try to determine pathways that will get them into a more successful situation,” Moon said.
They help clients obtain identification documents, get into treatment and stable housing, and learn life skills.
“We believe that if someone's homeless, it’s because their life has become unmanageable,” he said.
Last year, Moon said the shelter helped 67 people find stable housing. They then keep up continued case management for one year.
Need is on the Rise
The overall need for emergency shelter in the area is going up, according to Moon. Catalyst is on track to see over 100 more people this year than last, an increase of around 15%.
“Homelessness isn't going away,” Moon told the council. “There’s more clients we’re working with on the streets every day.”
It costs around $500,000 to operate Catalyst annually through a patchwork of funding including local and state government dollars and community donations, Moon said.
Jeffersonville has given $50,000 annually since 2020, and Moon said they received more than $250,000 from Clark County government in opioid settlement funds. Clarksville has supported the shelter financially over the past few years, most recently with $30,000 from an opioid settlement grant.
Moon said this funding from municipalities is essential, particularly as factors like lack of affordable housing, loss of COVID-19 funding and other economic stressors are contributing to a rise in homelessness.
The clients, if they have income or an ability to pay, are charged $10 per day to stay at the shelter and get services, or $5 a day if they also do a chore for the house. But less than 30% of people who come in can pay, Moon said.
The Southern Indiana shelter is also seeing more people come from Louisville, as the city takes down camps and as unhoused people face more ticketing through the Safer Kentucky Act. That legislation, passed last year, criminalizes sleeping or camping in public.
Moon said unless someone is in a critical population — like with a child under 6, or a person over 65 who’s infirm — they try to provide information to get them connected to services across the bridge.
“We cannot be responsible for Louisville's homeless problem,” Moon said. “We can't. We can barely take care of our own.”
Information from the 2024 Point in Time Count on the Indiana Housing and Community Development site shows 143 people from Clark County and 68 from Floyd were unsheltered, in emergency shelter or temporary housing.
But advocates say this count, taken on one day in January, doesn’t show the true scope of homelessness in a given area.
Coverage of Southern Indiana is funded, in part, by Samtec Inc., the Hazel & Walter T. Bales Foundation, and the Caesars Foundation of Floyd County.
