By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The new year can mean new beginnings and resolutions. For area residents struggling with food insufficiency or homelessness, a new beginning for the Gillespie Center means more support will be available in 2025.

The renovated center on Jesup Road — housing both an emergency shelter and food pantry — has newly painted walls, large windows, new beds and bedding, a large new kitchen and an expanded pantry on the top floor. It is scheduled to re-open Jan. 6, according to Helen McAlinden, president and CEO of Homes with Hope, which manages the Gillespie Center.

The lack of affordable housing in Westport and surrounding towns has caused many of the struggles faced by people who use the nonprofit’s services, McAlinden said as she gave a tour of the nearly completed center.

“You have to earn $40 to $50 per hour to afford a studio apartment in Fairfield County,” she said. And for those earning less, problems can mushroom as they have to make choices between paying for food, heat or rent.

The shelter has space for 15 men and four women and “is always full to capacity,” she said. The  remodeling project faced a funding gap last winter when construction bids were higher than expected, but donations were received to cover the additional costs.

The center’s renovations “are very client centered,” McAlinden said, in order to better focus on client needs in several ways:

Privacy and respect: The center now has separate spaces for the shelter and food pantry, eliminating the need for pantry clients, staff and volunteers to pass through the shelter. There are several new separate bathrooms, and one door that leads directly from outdoors into the food pantry and another providing access to the shelter. Plus, there are more private areas for social workers and other staff to meet with clients.

And one smaller multipurpose room can be used as a sleeping room for someone who is transgender, in a wheelchair or sick to give those clients the privacy they need, McAlinden said.

ADA compliance: The center has been brought into compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations by designing hallways and bathrooms to accommodate wheelchairs in the shelter area. And a dumbwaiter has been installed to bring food from the food pantry down to the lower floor. The building does not have an elevator, but anyone who needs help with food from the pantry can be assisted by staff on site or food may be delivered to their homes.

Food pantry additions: Students from a master’s degree program at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield studied the needs of food pantry clients at the Gillespie Center, resulting in an expansion of the pantry’s offerings. The students interviewed clients, social workers and other staff, and determined that fresh fruit and vegetables, milk and cheese and more personal hygiene and toiletry items should be added to the program. Previously, the food pantry stocked only non-perishable items. Clients pick up free foods once a week, McAlinden said, with part of the inventory supplied by local grocery stores, Trader Joe’s, in particular. And proceeds from the annual Slice of Saugatuck festival, organized by the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce, are donated to the pantry every year, she said. This year, a $5,000 donation was made.

During the Gillespie remodeling project, the Linxweiller House, 655 Post Road East, has been used as a temporary emergency shelter, housing five men. The 1.3-acre site has been discussed as a possible location for affordable housing in the future, where “cottage-cluster” affordable units may be built. The men living there temporarily will return to the Gillespie Center when it opens in January.

Working to help those in need is a community effort, McAlinden said, and many individuals and organizations helped make the Gillespie remodeling project happen. 

Funding was provided by the state Department of Housing and individual donations, she said. And she is grateful for help from several town officials, including Elaine Daignault, director of the Department of Human Services, and First Selectwomen Jennifer Tooker. “Jen Tooker has been instrumental to make things happen,” McAlinden said.

Now, the shelter is set to reopen to give the homeless a place to come in from brutally cold winter weather. “It’s sad to see people die of the cold,” she said.

To donate to the shelter or food pantry, visit the Homes with Hope website. Right now, the shelter needs sheets for twin beds that are extra-long size, and a $30 donations pays for a “bed in a bag,” which each contain top and bottom sheets and a pillowcase.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.