Pine Bluff Salvation Army closing overnight homeless shelter
PINE BLUFF, Ark. – The only overnight homeless shelter in Pine Bluff is closing its doors on June 1.
Rachel Perdieu, corps officer for the location said the decision by their corporate office has been in the works for a couple of months.
“As far as overnight sheltering, unfortunately there will not be a place in Pine Bluff for overnight sheltering,” Perdieu said.
Perdieu added that financial decline, lack of on-call employees and more led to the decision. They are not only closing the shelter, but also stopping hosting church services.
“The main reason is because over the past five years there has been a significant decline in contributions to the Salvation Army,” Perdieu said.
However, social services manager Donna Oliver said they’ll still be helping families and people through other avenues.
“I’ll make sure with other agencies, we can reach out and provide services for those people in some type of way,” Oliver said.
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Four part-time employees will also be losing their jobs. Perdieu said they have open positions available in other areas of the ministry to offer those people affected.
Perdieu said even an influx of donations right now won’t prevent the shelter from closing but looks to the future for a possible change in the coming years.
“The services can always open back up, this is not an indefinite decision, this is a right now, we don’t have the funding decisions and we have to make the changes,” Perdieu said.
There are other homeless shelters in the area, but they are daytime shelters.
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FOX 16 News reached out to Mayor Shirley Washington multiple times about this to see what the city might be able to do to help but have not yet heard back.
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