Refresh is on the front lines of homelessness in Holland — and it’s not getting better.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of The Sentinel’s “Homes for the Holidays” series by reporter Cassidey Kavathas. For the past two months, Kavathas and photographer Adam Vander Kooy have spoken to residents affected by homelessness, toured local organizations and spoken to housing experts. In her series, Kavathas will explore the challenges posed by a lack of affordable housing, the nonprofits working to combat it, and the solutions that might bring our neighbors back home.

HOLLAND — After a fire in 1979, the First United Methodist Church of Holland renovated their fellowship hall to be more gym-like; and it only made sense to add showers.

They didn’t realize, at the time, what a difference that decision would make.

In 2016, Community Kitchen — a hot-meal service from Community Action House — needed a temporary space to operate while Western Theological Seminary underwent renovations near the campus of Hope College. First United offered to house the program.

Those moves, made decades apart, became the basis of Refresh, a partnership between First United and CAH.

More: ‘I’ve seen people die’: Holland’s housing crisis has real faces, and real consequences

“We (realized) it’s amazing to have our building used for more than just Sunday mornings and the occasional other stuff,” said First United Director of Community Involvement LuAnne Stanley Hook.

Community Kitchen moved back home, and Stanley Hook asked CAH what more the church could do.

In 2019, Refresh was born.

Refresh provides access to showers, clothes and a light meal, as well as mail services for those who need an address to receive checks and essential correspondence. The services were chosen after an outreach survey conducted by CAH found the biggest barriers to housing stemmed from a lack of being able to stay clean, receive mail and find access to resources.

“We have showers in our building … and they rarely got used,” Stanley Hook said. Now, they’re used every Tuesday and Friday from 8-11 a.m. and Wednesdays from 6-8 p.m.

Refresh aims to be a low-barrier resource that restores dignity to a vulnerable population.

“A lot of folks that come in just don’t think they’re worth anything,” Stanley Hook said. ” For us to learn their name, be happy to see them, be able to chit-chat with them and hopefully walk this journey with them … it’s important to view people as worthy.”

Refresh has a few simple rules — keep the space safe, respect others, no illegal contraband or substances or weapons, and visit between scheduled hours. There are no moral rules, though. Residents can come as they are.

“It’s really a safe place for people to be who they are and know that we’re not judging them,” said CAH Housing Access Program Manager Jessica Pressley. “We’re not there picking apart why they might have ended up here. We’re here to learn from them, grow, and help them understand what their next steps are.”

Perhaps the biggest benefit of Refresh, organizers said, is that it helps build trust. Oftentimes, people who come to Refresh for a shower and meal turn to CAH for additional support.

“It takes a long time to build that trust,” said CAH Director of Communications Katy Russner-Travis. “Refresh provides a space where people can gather, get those urgent needs met and then work on longer term stability.”

The number of residents served by Refresh is consistent, with the record for a single service at 127, but there are peaks in the summer and dips in the winter — perhaps due to less evictions in the winter months and an inability to travel.

“People will often find, even if they’re less safe, places to stay indoors. They’ll find couches, storage units,” Pressley said. “This may drop the amount of people that go outdoors to travel here. If it’s a really cold day and all your clothing gets wet traveling here, you’re now stuck in wet clothing.”

As of December, 97 people served by CAH found stable housing in 2024. That’s categorized as a room to rent, an apartment or a home. In 2019, the number of people regularly served by Refresh who found stable housing was only seven.

But even as more people secure homes, Refresh’s service numbers are rising. Why?

“That’s due to what’s happening in our communities,” Stanley Hook said, citing a loss in affordable rentals, the cost of construction, and a lack of focus on intentionally creating neighborhoods for those on low incomes.

“We needed to be working on this problem at least a decade ago, if not two,” Stanley Hook said. “We’re way, way behind.”

The median gross rent, including utilities, was just under $1,150 in Ottawa County in 2023, according to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. Over half (52%) of local renters spent at least 30% of their income on housing.

That’s significantly higher then in 2018, when only 45% of renters were overburdened.

Homes are also getting more expensive. The median home value in Ottawa County was $264,000 in 2018 (using 2023 dollars). In 2023, that number was $328,000, and about 21% of mortgaged homeowners spent at least 30% of their income on housing, according to the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau.

All statistics were directly provided to The Sentinel by the MSHDA.

“People are just losing their housing like crazy, and if you don’t have housing for people to move into, then you have people living in their cars,” Stanley Hook said. “We’ve also seen people start out in cars, and then cars are the big expense. … If they haven’t been able to find stability yet, then it’s even harder.”

Stanley Hook hoped to see the number of people experiencing homelessness dwindle since starting Refresh, but she believes the population has doubled or more.

“It’s disheartening that we’ve gone backwards that far,” she said. “We can only do what we can do — but this is a community problem.”

Still, in seeing others rally behind Refresh, she has hope for the future.

“My vision would be for the community to work together,” Stanley Hook said. “It’s a community injustice that needs to be solved and it’s going to take all of us to do it.”

— Cassidey Kavathas is the politics and court reporter at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at ckavathas@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @cassideykava.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Refresh at First United in Holland aims to restore dignity, trust