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Thanks To Community, Holy Ground Shelter Keeps Doors Open

Posted Jun 9, 2009 by Geoff Fox

Updated Jun 9, 2009 at 05:15 PM

Everyday People can become homeless, too.

Go to any homeless shelter in the country, and you’ll hear stories of woe told by people who used to have jobs and families, support systems that kept them clothed and fed, and a sense of purpose in their lives.

The stories aren’t always true, of course, but the fact is that anyone can fall on hard times, and sometimes (rarely, perhaps) thanks to circumstances beyond their control.

Last week, Lisa Barabas-Henry, who has run the Holy Ground Homeless Shelter on Denton Avenue in Hudson for almost 20 years, found herself in a desperate position.

A couple of days after being released from the hospital (she has a heart condition and had pneumonia) the company that owns the Holy Ground property had placed an eviction notice on the front door. The bottom line was simple enough to understand: pay two months’ rent (about $7,900) by Tuesday, June 9, or the doors would close. Barabas-Henry, who also recently buried her eldest son, didn’t know where to turn. Neither did the nearly 70 people, including 16 children ages 2 to 14, who called Holy Ground home. The shelter also serves between 33,000 and 40,000 meals a year. (That’s Lisa in the picture to the left)

Happily, the community turned to her.

Local residents and businesses, many of them feeling the same economic pinch, flooded the shelter with money, food, furniture and other donations.

This morning, Ted Davis of Odessa, who owns K&J Consulting Services, a global computer network infrastructure company in Tampa, was even inspired to give the shelter a check for $6,000; by then, Holy Ground had already collected enough money to keep the doors open.

Davis didn’t mind. Besides, the shelter can still use all the money and donations it can get.

“We’re blessed, and I just wanted to give back,” he said. “The main thing [that motivated me] was all the things [Barabas-Henry] has done for so many families. You close that place and [all those] people are homeless; it really got to me. It was so moving, even going there today. I just didn’t want to see that place closed.” That’s good news, and not just for the area’s homeless.

Holy Ground is known for giving away turkeys at Thanksgiving and toys at Christmas. Barabas-Henry also has lobbied for homeless rights. The shelter’s thrift store sells all manner of items, and this morning Denton Avenue was lined with newly donated couches and other items.

Still reeling from the last week’s emotional roller coaster and drained by the pneumonia that still filled one lung, Barabas-Henry cried tears of relief this morning.

“This is unbelievable; it’s so hard to comprehend. Businesses, residents, just the average person” donated, she said. “One person on unemployment came in to give $5. How do you take their $5?”

Her mother, Jean Timmons, the shelter’s office manager, said the mood among Holy Ground residents had gone from devastated to elated in a matter of days.

“People were worried, and that’s a lot of people,” she said. “Where were they going to go? We have a hospice patient here with three months [to live]. Where was he going to go?

“You can’t just put him on the street.”

For information about Holy Ground, call the shelter at (727) 863-9123.