When Darcie Melvin started coming to Companions in Wholeness nearly four years ago, she said she was dealing with a substance abuse disorder. At first, she was just grateful for the food at the Rutland day shelter — then she got to know the staff.
“I was kind of at my wits’ end,” Melvin said. “This place has truly become like a family to me.”
Over the course of several years, the day shelter helped Melvin with bills, to furnish her apartment and connect her with other services. Melvin said she’s now been in recovery for about 16 months, but she still comes in regularly to volunteer and has slowly stopped needing to accept offers of free food.
However, the shelter now faces uncertainty as it announced plans to lay off every paid worker on Aug. 2, after federal grants froze and state ones were not renewed in the spring. Four employees plan to keep working, unpaid, to keep the organization open.
“It would be a terrible thing,” Outreach Coordinator Linda Allen said of a possible closure.
Allen is among the four employees who plan to keep working without pay, citing a deep sense of obligation to the organization’s regulars.
People in the organization’s crowded main room on Thursday said the facility had been a cornerstone of their recovery — and sometimes survival. But Executive Director Ellie McGarry has been left with few options after losing both of her major public funding streams.
Companions in Wholeness is open Monday through Thursday, 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Apart from serving meals to about 150 people per day, it offers clothing, climate control, rest areas and appointments with service providers. In August, the schedule is set to shrink to three hours a day, offering one meal rather than two.
The loss of funding comes as the demand for Companions in Wholeness has been steadily growing over the past few years. McGarry said the latest round of evictions from the state’s motel voucher program produced acute pressure on shelter services.
The situation was already severe. A 2024 report found that Rutland County’s unhoused population had increased by a factor of seven since 2019. Statewide, the rate of homelessness still ranked fourth worst in the nation last year.
Companions in Wholeness is part of the United Methodist Church in Rutland. It even operates out of the church’s physical space — staff push the altar aside to transform the room into a shelter just hours after Sunday services. Melvin said the connection with the church had been important for her.
Companions in Wholeness is trying to expand and move to a larger church space, McGarry said. The organization also plans to become an independent entity and change its name to Rutland Neighbors.
But the building is not McGarry’s main worry. She had hoped for a total of $260,000 in grants to carry the shelter’s growing burden this year. None of it came through. The organization requires about $20,000 per month to operate, she said. Right now, it has $10,000 in the bank.
The federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which the organization used to receive funds from, was frozen this spring. The program was administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which did not respond to requests for comment.
At the same time, the Housing Opportunity Grant Program through the Vermont Department for Children and Families did not choose to award a payment to the organization, despite doing so each of the past two years.
Lily Sojourner, director of the department’s Office of Economic Opportunity, said the Housing Opportunity Grants originally were intended to support overnight shelters. Given that BROC Community action, a nonprofit primarily serving Bennington and Rutland counties, has plans to open such a shelter in Rutland this fall, the state directed more significant financial support to that project.
Eric Maguire, the project director for the new BROC Community Action shelter, said the facility likely will be up and running by November or December. The program expects to house 10 people to start, with high barriers to admission, requiring people to be sober and lack other housing alternatives. Maguire said having a sober, overnight shelter in the city is critical given the community’s current housing and substance use needs.
Companions in Wholeness does not allow entry to people who are disruptive or visibly under the influence, but McGarry said she welcomes people whom she knows to be dealing with substance use disorders.
Brooke Kurutza — a 31-year-old from Barre who has been coming to Companions in Wholeness for four years and had substance use disorders at various points in her life — said she has been experiencing homelessness since she was 18.
“This place is everything to me,” she said.
Kurutza said a new shelter would greatly help the community, as Rutland’s Open Door Mission, where she currently stays, is full.
Both services are necessary, she said. Overnight shelters often require people staying there to leave fairly early in the morning, while places like Companions in Wholeness allow people to eat, rest and seek shelter from the elements during the day.
Ronald Jones has been going to Companions in Wholeness since it opened in 2018 and said he eats all his meals there. He said he is worried what restricted hours and resources will mean for people who rely on the organization.
“It’s going to do damaging things,” he said.
Companions in Wholeness plans to host a bowling event in Rutland on Sept. 14 to fundraise the necessary resources to continue operations, according to a statement Friday.
“It’s taken me 39 years to find people like this,” Melvin said through tears. “I don’t want to lose it.”
