NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Shirley Manuel was looking to move to the Berkshires with her ailing husband to be closer to her grown children. 

 

She'd visited last fall and then drove here from Mississippi in March to scout out a place to live. It was during her drive north that she received the tragic news that her 82-year-old husband had died of a heart attack.

 

She moved into her daughter's apartment but there wasn't really any space for her. So she called Louison House for help. 

 

"It was nothing like what I expected. I'm 67 years old. I didn't know anything about being homeless, living in a shelter, who to turn to, where to go, anything," she told the attendees at Louison House's annual meeting. "But I had help from everybody."

 

She immediately made herself useful — cooking for the 17 people staying there — and, she admitted, annoying because she kept trying to do everyone's job. 

 

"Miss Kathy would get on me because she would tell me, you know, stop trying to take over everybody's job. Stop telling everybody to go by your rules. They have to go by Louison House rules," she laughed. "I can't help that this my personality!"

 

Louison House helped her find a permanent place to live and the items she needed to furnish it. She's now giving back as a member of the shelter's advisory committee. 

 

"I've had a wonderful experience, nothing but the best I can honestly say. Like I said, I would have been living on the streets. I wouldn't have known how to act or what to do," Manuel said. "Louison House was there for me right from the beginning. I would recommend it. Well, I recommend it to anybody homeless."

 

Manuel's story highlights the mission of Louison House, often thought of as just an emergency shelter. The organization does that, but more importantly provides transitional housing to help people get back on their feet and permanent supportive housing. Since 2016, it served more than 5,000 people through its housing and supportive programs. 

 

In the last year alone, it's provided more than 600 people with housing assistance, assisted nearly 100 in securing housing, and distributed $10 BRTA bus passes to more than 400 people to help them get to housing or income-related appointments. Nearly 200 individuals have been provided apartments, 14 given emergency sheltering and 32 with supportive housing. 

 

"We've been serving Berkshire County since 1990," Executive Director Kathy Keeser said. "We started because the community thought it was important. Louison House wasn't even named anything way back then ... 

 

"We say our mission is to meet the needs of the neighbors who are experiencing homelessness, at risk of housing and stability. Pretty simple mission, but it is what we are."

 

Louison House started as Family Support Services and the Adams shelter was named after late founder Theresa Louison. Keeser has often described the 2016 fire at shelter as both a curse and something of a blessing. She'd been brought on board just three days before the fire broke out and the sprinkler system significantly damaged what is now called Terry's House. 

 

In a way, it kickstarted an overhaul of the old Louison House, and then renovations at newly acquired Flood House in North Adams. The agency has seen its annual budget triple at close to $1.5 million this year, its staff double from 9 or 10 to 19 or 20, and its state and federal funding quadruple to more than $1 million. A house on Bracewell is being rehabilitated as temporary housing for young people with expectations to open next year.  

 

The pandemic put more people on the street, so Louison House was able to tap into Federal Emergency Management Agency funding and about 18 months ago, became a state-funded emergency sheltering agency using motels. 

 

"It's not the ideal location, but it works out pretty well," Keeser said of the motels, which Louison has been using for about three years.

 

More recently, Louison has established a memorial fund in honor of the late Dr. Susan Yates, who had been a board member. These monies will be used to fill in gaps on basic needs that state and federal funding doesn't cover, such as equipment rentals and transportation to move.

 

The meeting, held in Murdock Hall on the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts campus, also recognized three staff members: Susan Alvarez and Dickilyn MacKinnon, both of whom have been with Louison for more than 10 years, and Tracy Beany, at 20 years. 

 

Earlier in the meeting, Keeser asked attendees to raise their hands to questions such as if they'd struggled financially, had or knew someone with mental illness, had volunteered or worked with a partner agency, and if they'd ever rented. Numerous hands went up across the room. 

 

"That's kind of common grounds that we all have, we may be from different walks of life, different pieces of life, we all have commonality, and these are things that bring our folks into our housing," she said. "Those are common grounds, and we all have them, and that's why we like to say when we're talking about people, they're our neighbors, or they're our guests."