NORTHAMPTON — Mental health and community support nonprofit Clinical & Support Options (CSO) gave a walking tour of their new homeless shelter and support site in Northampton on Thursday, although the organization isn’t expected to move into the facility until the start of the new year.

Karin Jeffers, the CEO and president of CSO, said the new facility would allow people struggling with homelessness to receive a wider range of services than at CSO’s current Northampton location on Grove Street. Various city and state officials were on hand as part of the walking tour and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new shelter, located at Industrial Drive on a 5-acre property.

“The focus is not just providing a bed and a meal,” Jeffers told those gathered Thursday at the new site, which will replace CSO’s current support center. “It’s all of that wraparound that not only gets people who are most vulnerable in our doors, it gets them stabilized here, it gets them into the community, and then we make sure they maintain their housing so that they don’t have to enter a cycle where they’re coming back through that door.”

In an interview, Jeffers said that the new shelter would be able to accommodate around 50 people with beds during the winter months, as well as an additional 50 to 60 more people for daytime services. That’s an increase of about 20 beds from the organization’s Grove Street location, and Jeffers also said that the shelter will have up to eight staff members during daytime hours.

“We felt that we needed an expanded location, both to be able to shelter more individuals, but also to be able to provide supportive services to them, like clinical services and nursing,” Jeffers said. “This [shelter] really combines all of that and adds a day center to provide support for individuals to come during the day.”

Jeffers traced the origins of the new shelter back to 2016, when CSO merged with organization Friends of the Homeless, beginning their work in supporting unhoused individuals. In 2018, CSO received a $2.5 million federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, allowing them to integrate behavioral health services for those struggling with homelessness.

After expanding its services at its Springfield location, CSO decided to expand services in Northampton also, with additional grant funding from the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities and local fundraising efforts.

Inside the facility, there are separate shelter rooms and bathrooms with showers for men and women, as well as an additional space for LGBTQ people and those either too young or too old to be in a regular shelter room. It also includes the daytime center, a spacious area where meals can be served to those who come to the center.

“We’ll have three meals a day here, and then things like recovery support groups,” Jeffers said. “One of the perks of integrating nursing into a shelter program is, they can point out when we’re not feeding people healthy meals.”

The shelter will also have a space for taking care of pets and animals, who often accompany homeless people. It features an indoor and outdoor kennel space where animals can be kept, groomed and washed, something that Jane Banks, CSO’s vice president of housing and homeless services, said is key to encouraging unhoused people to come to the shelter.

“I think about what it would be like if I was housing-insecure or homeless and could not take my pet. That’s heartbreaking,” Banks said. “This is an opportunity across the board to show how we look at reducing all of the barriers that we have for shelter, how we look at increasing our housing supports.”

Though the shelter still requires some additional construction, Jeffers said the goal is for CSO to officially move into the facility on Jan. 2. An outdoor courtyard is also expected to be built and ready for the springtime.

Officials present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony included Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, state Housing Secretary Ed Augustus and Northampton City Councilors Marianne LeBarge, Deb Klemer and Stanley Moulton.

In visiting the facility, Sciarra thanked CSO for their commitment to helping unhoused people in Hampshire County. CSO is also coordinating with the city on the planned Community Resilience Hub, to be located in Northampton’s downtown.

“The shelter is a testament to the kind of community Northampton strives to be: compassionate, innovative and determined to meet people where they are,” Sciarra said. “This space really reflects a deep understanding of our most vulnerable residents’ challenges, and a true willingness to meet those challenges.”

Augustus also offered words of praise for CSO during the ceremony.

“It’s not easy work. There’s a lot of misperception, misunderstanding, and quite frankly hostility around making sure folks who are homeless have a safe place to be,” he said. “It’s not for the faint-hearted, the work you do, but it’s critical that organizations like CSO and the people who support them do this kind of work.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.