Share the Warmth buys former school building

Share the Warmth purchased the former Hillsdale Preparatory School building on Mechanic Road for $425,000 Oct. 31 with the plan to open a year-round homeless shelter.

Share the Warmth is a local nonprofit and the only official homeless shelter in Hillsdale County, operating out of Sozo Church since 2019. Its current location will close March 31 next year, limited by its contract with the church. The shelter is currently open every night from Nov. 1 to April 1. At its new location, it plans to open year-round from 4:45 p.m. to 8 a.m. starting Nov. 1 of next year.

“We can’t promise that because funding isn’t going to be an issue,” Executive Director Penny Myers said. “But our hope is to once we open in November, our hope is to be open all year.”

Though Share the Warmth had planned to move into Southern Michigan RV, a body shop on W. Carlton Road, Myers said the property fell through before any purchase agreement was signed. Myers said she talked to Share the Warmth’s real estate agent, Christie Plemmons, to find a new site.

Hillsdale Preparatory School was a charter school that had just closed over the summer, and its property was available for sale, though not publicly advertised, according to Myers.

“I said, ‘We’re interested in the Hillsdale Preparatory School property,’ and she said, ‘Oh my gosh, Penny, I just literally walked out of that building,’ because she was going to be their real estate agent,” Meyers said.

Myers said Plemmons told her she could buy the property from the Preparatory School’s board of directors, which spanned three buildings and five acres, for under $500,000.

“She said, ‘You are going to have to move quickly on this because there’s going to be other people that are going to be interested in it because that’s a hot piece of property,’” Myers said.

The main building is about 20,000 square feet, the gym is about 10,000 square feet, and the third building is about 4,000 square feet, according to Sam Negus, vice president of Share the Warmth’s board of trustees. Negus said the buildings they purchased are more than three times larger than the property they formerly considered, with plenty of space to renovate and expand.

“It may have actually been that they just accepted our offer because we had the cash available, which was the other providential part,” Negus said.

Myers said some anonymous donors that she and her husband had met a few years ago said they were interested in helping fund Share the Warmth.

“We had a meeting with them, and they said, ‘We are going to give you the full amount with no strings attached to pay for that building,’” Myers said.

Negus said, due to the city’s zoning code, Share the Warmth needed the city planning commission’s permission to move properties and obtain year-round status for its new building. The city’s zoning office gives advice and processes applications to put them in front of the zoning board, who are volunteer public members appointed by the mayor and voted in by the council, according to Negus.

“They were encouraging when we talked to them,” Negus said. “We’re optimistic that we’ll get zoning approval, but that’s certainly not guaranteed. That’s the next step before we do anything else.”

Myers said Share the Warmth has contacted architects, who have preliminary drawings for the renovations.

“It’s going to be a huge undertaking, but we really feel like this community has stepped up for us,” Myers said. “The cost of running a full time shelter is going to rise exponentially. It’s a major undertaking.”

Share the Warmth first opened in 2018 at the House of Refuge Church. Myers said the board understood a nighttime emergency shelter open only during the winter was not going to be enough.

Myers said the shelter hopes to hire a program director and work with recovery and mental health programs in the Hillsdale community. The shelter currently has a kitchen manager, an operations staffer, and an administration assistant who work as volunteers, according to Myers. She said the new property will easily fit 50 to 75 people overnight.

Christina Howard, a former guest at Share the Warmth, said she came to the shelter in 2019 from Coldwater. Though she had come from outside of Hillsdale, Myers let her stay during the winter months for four years.

“It connected me with very nice, wonderful people that volunteer there, not only Penny but the other volunteers there too,” Howard said.

Howard said she was happy to hear about Share the Warmth’s new year-round status because it has become hard to put up tents anywhere because of the city’s ordinance banning camping on public property.

“We have to go out of town to put up a tent which is quite a way to be walking and trying to get your life straight,” Howard said. “The volunteers are very upset when it’s time for you to have to leave for those few months in the summertime when you can’t be there.”

Myers said because Share the Warmth wants to remain free from federal or state funding, it makes the shelter dependent on the community for donations and volunteers.

“We are so thankful for this community and how they have supported us,” Myers said.

Share the Warmth buys former school building

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