St. Vincent will halt work June 30, and city leaders say they will seek a new shelter provider, with a goal to remain open with no interruption of services.
Michael Vanderburgh, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society in Dayton, said the nonprofit has seen shelter costs skyrocket in recent years due to inflation, and federal COVID relief aid that helped cover budget shortfalls has dried up.
Some “shelter expenses have more than doubled in the last several years,” he said. “We were in a mode where we could make it work with incremental expense increases, but once expenses started getting to be big chunks, our private fundraising can’t keep up with that.”
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. said in a statement that he’s deeply disappointed by St. Vincent De Paul’s decision to halt operations.
“The city will work diligently with all partners to ensure a seamless transition and uninterrupted services for the men who depend on this shelter,” the mayor said. “Our commitment to supporting vulnerable populations remains steadfast, as ensuring the well-being and stability of our community is our top priority.”
Done in 2025
Since 1985, St. Vincent de Paul Society has operated the Dayton community’s emergency overnight shelter for adults and families, once called the St. Vincent Hotel.
An old fire station downtown served as the shelter until it was moved to 120 W. Apple Street in 2005.
The Gettysburg Gateway Shelter for Men opened in 2009 in a facility that is near a landfill and a prison.
St. Vincent de Paul said that it would continue to serve homeless men at the DePaul Center in downtown Dayton and at its Safe Haven and Kettering Commons communities.
The Shelter for Women and Families at Apple Street will remain in operation. It sheltered record numbers of kids and families late last year.
Vanderburgh said St. Vincent de Paul was projecting a $1.4 million budget shortfall for 2024, but the nonprofit was able to close that gap with federal COVID relief funding obtained from the city of Dayton and Montgomery County.
Vanderburgh said St. Vincent again was facing a budget gap of the same size in 2025 but the organization managed to get some additional funding from a human services levy and the county. Vanderburgh said that still left a sizable funding shortfall.
Pandemic emergency funds are going away, and Vanderburgh said St. Vincent has to do things differently moving forward. He said the organization is looking to eliminate about a quarter of its positions (about 40 of 160 jobs).
Vanderburgh said hopefully those job reductions can be handled mainly through attrition.
Vanderburgh said St. Vincent de Paul will help lead community discussions about what comes next.
“People think of St. Vincent solving this problem on its own and we can’t solve this problem on our own,” he said. “That’s what this next seven months is about — pushing forward to have those tough conversations about who is going to do what and what our highest priorities are to address the toughest situations of homelessness.”
Dayton officials said the city in recent months has worked with Montgomery County and St. Vincent de Paul leadership to try to identify potential solutions to prevent the nonprofit from ceasing operations.
Dayton is not the first city in the region to have this problem in 2024. In August, the city of Springfield failed to reach a contract agreement with Dayton-based Homefull, which had run that area’s family homeless shelter out of a former Executive Inn hotel. In that case, changes were immediate, as about two dozen families with close to 70 children were moved to more limited shelters run by Sheltered Inc.
Dayton officials say the city and county have not reduced their funding support of shelter operations.
The city says it provided more than $3 million in emergency shelter grants to St. Vincent de Paul between 2016 and 2024, plus $3 million of its federal COVID relief aid.
St. Vincent de Paul, however, says the loss of emergency COVID funding was a big blow.
“We have to be responsible for looking ahead and not having a situation like we had in Springfield recently where a shelter closes and there isn’t a plan,” Vanderburgh said. “I don’t know what the future holds for how we can best serve homeless men in the Dayton area, but I do know that we’re going to lead conversations about that.”
Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein in a statement said the city is working closely with Montgomery County and the Dayton-Kettering-Montgomery County Continuum of Care to try to ensure that there is a smooth transition between homeless service providers for this vulnerable population. She said the goal is to avoid interrupting homeless shelter services.
“The city of Dayton is unwavering in its commitment to providing emergency shelter services 24/7, 365 days a year,” Dickstein said.
The city says it owns the Gettysburg Gateway Homeless Shelter for Men property, and a new provider of services will be selected through an open and competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) process.
The Gettysburg Gateway Shelter for Men is a 258-bed, 24-hour-a-day shelter for homeless single men, according to St. Vincent de Paul’s combined financial statements.
Officials say the shelter does not have a hard cap on the number of guests it can serve, and it recently averaged about 235 guests each night. During the winter, it can shelter nearly 300 guests each night.
The Gateway Shelter for Women and Families at Apple Street has about 253 beds and provides shelter 24-hours-a-day to homeless single women and their families, according to the financial statements.
Both shelters provide three meals each day, laundry services and have bath and shower facilities.
The shelters are supported primarily through state and local grant funding (two-thirds of revenue) and private donor contributions (one-third).
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