Most days, Durham resident Justin Gattis comes into the Hope Day Center just for a shower. He brings his lunch from Sheetz down the road, plugs in his headphones, and rests his head on the table.
“I’m here, ain’t bothering nobody,” Gattis said, over a boxed tuna salad sandwich.
The 61-year-old is on his feet most of the day, working part time directing traffic. At night, he finds his “cat hole,” as he calls it, which is a spot on the street where he can sleep in peace. He’s up before 5 a.m., to avoid early dog walkers and neighbors who might spot him.
Since discovering the downtown Durham day shelter two months ago, Gattis has come several times a week. He’s one of more than 560 unhoused individuals to come through the day center since it opened in April, as part of a nine-month pilot program Durham County launched with $350,000 to support the unhoused community.
As Durham’s unhoused population climbs, the city and county launched a plan over the summer to work toward ending homelessness by 2031. The first target is a 30% reduction in unsheltered homelessness by June 2027.
In line with this mission, the day center, operated by Urban Ministries of Durham, is designed to fill a gap in the Bull City’s homelessness services by giving unhoused individuals a safe place to go during the day and connect with resources. Leaders at Urban Ministries have seen huge successes: The number of visitors who have come through to shower, charge devices, and rest is ahead of target.
But the center is behind on its goals to connect people with housing and employment opportunities. By October, Urban Ministries had expected to connect 14 people to permanent or transitional housing, and instead has connected six. It also aimed to connect 358 people to workforce opportunities, and has connected 40 as of October 5.
The pilot program will end in January, but, at an October 5 meeting, county commissioners expressed support for continuing to fund the day center after the pilot ends in January.
“Not everything is going to be on track, not everything is going to be ahead,” Mike Lee, chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, said at the meeting. “But this is what we should talk about here at the board governance level, and we can easily see here how this is going and how we can advocate from a board level.”
County Commissioner Wendy Jacobs said the day center is cost-effective, costing the county $34 a visit—compared with $200 a day at the county jail, where people could end up without someplace else to go.
“We know, with our familiar faces, when people cycle through our systems, being unhoused—anything we can do to keep people out of places like our emergency room or our detention center is saving us money,” Jacobs said.
Jonathan Gattis, interim executive director at Urban Ministries (and no relation to Justin Gattis), said not everyone is looking for housing or employment when they first come in, but that Urban Ministries is working to build trust over time.
The day center sets out board games and coloring sheets, and hosts events like bingo or journaling sessions. There’s a laptop people can use for job and housing applications, and some use it to listen to music or watch YouTube.
“We want to make the environment a space where people are comfortable and safe, and so when they’re ready to take another step, we’re here to help assist them on that path forward,” Jonathan Gattis said.
Some people are content with their living situation and don’t want the responsibility of housing, he said. Others worry their criminal backgrounds or debt may hurt their job and housing applications. But the resources at Hope Day Center are designed to help individuals of all backgrounds, and Jonathan Gattis and his team work with employers and landlords who can provide services to unhoused individuals.
The day center is one piece of Urban Ministries’ services. The community organization was founded in 1983 and offers meals, clothing, and shelter to Durham’s unhoused population. Many people who come through the day center sleep at Urban Ministries’ shelter at night, and come for meals in the mornings and evenings.
Justin Gattis said he’s working with the Hope Day Center staff to find longer-term employment. But he said the day center has given him a place to clean up in the mornings and be in a place where he won’t be judged.
“Being homeless, making a point to be clean and go to the doctor is important to me,” Justin Gattis said. “Some people don’t care. I do. And if I don’t feel like my body or clothing or whatever is up to standards to go talk to a doctor, I’m not gonna go.”
It’s a sunny morning, and the day center’s coordinator, Dewane Brown, steps outside of the center’s Queen Street entrance. He nods to a man smoking a cigar on a bench across the street.
“Hello, sir,” Brown calls out. “Have you heard of Hope Day Center?”
He walks across the street and sits on the bench, chatting with the man and inviting him inside.
This is part of Brown’s typical outreach efforts: word of mouth. The Urban Ministries overnight shelter is across the street, and it requires people to leave by 8 a.m. Many people gather around the shelter and the library next door during the day, and Brown walks up and down those streets to tell them about the day center.
Urban Ministries has also hosted open houses for the community—with 74 people attending the latest one in September—to get more people interested in using the center.
Despite the center being behind on some of its targets, Brown has seen many success stories. One man he invited in, who was shuffling his feet to move his wheelchair along, initially came in for a shower and fresh clothes. He struggled with addiction so Brown connected him with a recovery center that came to pick him up that same day. When the man came back a few weeks later, Brown said he was an entirely different person.
“All you could see was his teeth, and he was just grinning,” Brown said. “He was just so thankful for what we did to help him.”
Other folks have come back to the center to give Brown a hug when they land a job, and he often hears people singing in the showers, their mood boosted by this simple act. And after entering through the metal detector, others just come in and sleep, finally in a safe place where they don’t have to worry about their personal safety and belongings.
Moving forward, the day center will have an in-house washer and dryer, and has applied for grants to fund more services like meals. Currently, Urban Ministries offers breakfast and a bagged lunch prior to the day center’s 10 a.m. opening, and it provides dinner each day at 6 p.m. when the center closes. They have occasional snacks and meals during the day if an outside organization sponsors it.
The center also will allocate days to focus on housing and employment resources. These resources are always available, and every new visitor goes through an intake process for staff to see how they can best help, but these additional targeted efforts are designed to improve outcomes.
Jonathan Gattis hopes the day center can secure additional county funding to continue the program past its pilot.
The Urban Ministries team will present again to the county commissioners at the end of January, and will recommend what steps forward should look like. If the day center continues to see more than 500 visitors per month and the cost per visitor stays below $518 per month (the current cost is $323), Urban Ministries plans to recommend the county scale up the operation. If demand stays strong but housing exits lag, recommendations will likely include modifying the day center’s programming. If visits fall below that threshold, the day center may need to close.
“We’re serious about the role that we play in the system,” Jonathan Gattis said. “We see the center as a front door for people to come through, so they can have a path forward.”
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