Many buildings are shutting their doors in the face of the COVID pandemic. But Hope Harbor, a homeless shelter in Grand Island, is keeping its doors wide open.

“We still are accepting families and individuals. Whether or not you have symptoms, it doesn’t matter,” said Liz Mayfield, Executive Director of Hope Harbor.

“We do have a screening process we go through, we do temperature-taking twice a day, we’re trying to stay on top of all that. But our main concern really is that if you need housing, you know there’s an opportunity to reach out.”

Anyone in need of emergency housing is able to seek refuge at Hope Harbor, and families with symptomatic neighbors are no exception.

“If a family would come in and have somebody positive, or presumed positive with symptoms, the whole family would be quarantined together,” Mayfield said.

“Part of the reason is that those family members are already exposed, or have been exposed, so we want to keep them in their own space.”

However, classes have been suspended at the center, and only the most essential personnel are working the premises

“We love our volunteers. They have done a lot for us over the years. But at this time we have suspended volunteer activity on site.’ Mayfield said.

“Part of that is just for the safety, and the safety of our clients and residents too.”

While there isn’t an increase in applications for emergency housing at the moment, they do expect to see a rise during the Summer:

“We know that in the state of Nebraska evictions have been stayed for a while until the Fall, but rent is still due,” Mayfield said.

“What people are misunderstanding, I think, is that they don’t have to pay rent or can’t be evicted: they CAN be, it’s just going to be suspended for a few months, which is great, but people need to stay on top of their rent in order to not find themselves needing shelter,” Mayfield said.

“A lot of families in America live paycheck to paycheck and are on the verge of homelessness, so we know that this going to really make that situation so much worse.”

While volunteering has been suspended, Hope Harbor is still open to any extra financial or food support the community can provide.

If anyone has extra to share, certainly pantry foods, meat, all those things, dairy, all of that, same things everyone’s looking for right now are the same things we’re looking for.” Mayfield said.

“And we have a very generous community that has stepped up, and so we hope to see that move forward.”

Hope Harbor is keeping to its mission statement of providing services to families experiencing homelessness, no matter the situation.