By Ruth Melville

For the past three and a half years, The Gathering Place in Torrington has offered homeless individuals in Litchfield County a safe place to find help and services. It’s not an overnight shelter, but a daytime drop-in center where people can take a shower, do their laundry, find clothing for job interviews, and receive supportive services like mental health or substance abuse counseling, job counseling and legal advice.

The Gathering Place provides a centralized point of entry for people who become homeless in all of Litchfield Country. The guiding principle of The Gathering Place is to offer resources to individuals, families, veterans and youth so that they can go on to live happier, more productive and more independent lives.

The Gathering Place opened in May 2015, under the auspices of New Beginnings of Litchfield Hills (Continuum of Care), an umbrella organization that is the collaborative effort of many social service agencies in the county, including Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, the McCall Center for Behavioral Health and the Torrington Housing Authority. The building on Prospect Street, a converted doctor’s office, was bought with funding from The Draper Fund of the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation.

Nancy Cannavo, president of The Gathering Place and coordinator of Charlotte Hungerford’s Mental Health Services to the Homeless Program, says that local agencies involved in helping the homeless had wanted to open such a facility for many years. “We thought a one-stop place to find help would be good. There wasn’t even a place in Torrington for people to take a shower.”

A range of resources is available at The Gathering Place. On the most basic level, it is a safe place to relax, have a cup of coffee, find someone to talk with. But people can also apply for housing assistance and food stamps, get job advice, choose clothes for interviews, do laundry, take a shower, and receive referrals for mental health, substance abuse, legal and medical services. There is even someone who comes by to give haircuts. Volunteers from New Beginnings staff the center.

The building on Prospect Street is attractive and well equipped. The rooms are light and airy, with pale green walls with white trim. There is an office where providers can meet clients in private, a little kitchen, a children’s room with books and toys. There are also two handicapped bathrooms with showers and two sets of new washers and dryers.

In the basement there are two rooms of clothing displayed on racks and shoes on shelves. A large supply room is stocked with things like personal supplies, laundry detergent and small housewares.

One simple but critical function of The Gathering Place is to provide a place where people without homes can get mail. Without a mailing address, it is difficult if not impossible to be contacted by the housing authority or by possible employers, or to get food stamps. Claudia Sweeney, executive director of the Torrington Housing Authority, is vice president of The Gathering Place. She says that it’s “imperative to have a mailing address. Otherwise people can’t get the services they need.”

In its short time in operation, The Gathering Place has seen success. New Beginnings counts show that from October 2015 to April 2018, the center served 3,218 individuals and families. From January 2017 to April 2108, they helped to house 54 chronically homeless individuals and families.

Both New Beginnings and The Gathering Place are nonprofits that receive no state or federal funding but must depend on donations and fund-raising to keep going. Cannavo and Sweeney note that it can be difficult to raise money to fight homelessness in Litchfield Country, where the problem is perhaps less visible than in more urban areas; too many people think that there are no homeless individuals in their towns, but churches, shelters and soup kitchen know that’s simply not true.

A fund-raiser for The Gathering Place last April raised over $10,000. A musician who played at the event in April was so impressed by the work the center is doing that he has organized another fund-raiser, scheduled for the evening of Sept. 8, at the Litchfield Inn in Litchfield.

“Getting The Gathering Place together has been a lot of work,” Sweeney says, “and we’re still learning.” She points out that The Gathering Place has also proved valuable in helping local agencies work together better. “There is now more cooperation, which works better for everyone.”

The Gathering Place, at 21 Prospect Street, Torrington, is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Anyone in need of help, whether with housing or other issues, can dial 211 to obtain referrals to the relevant social service agencies.

Photos by Nancy Cannavo. Top: A large storage room stocks a variety of useful items, such as toothpaste, shampoo, laundry detergent, canned food and peanut butter.