Welcome To River Haven Homless Shelter

Working to Improve the Lives of Columbia County Residents

The River Haven Homeless Shelter is run by the River Haven Steering Committee, representatives from various social agencies, clergy from local churches, business people, and other volunteers. It is open to anyone who would like to work with the project.

The house is leased from Columbia County for one dollar per year. Restoration of the house, located at 108 E. Pleasant St., cost less than $20,000, as most of the work was done by volunteers and much of the building material and furniture was donated by people and businesses in the community.

The shelter is Non-Profit 501 (c) (3) organization. The project is funded by some grants, but its most important source of income is from ongoing fundraising within the community. The shelter depends on the generosity of the community.

Families with children and individual women are welcome at the shelter. All adults, children and volunteers over the age of 12 must pass a background screening. We do not accept violent individuals or ones with a history of violence. We also do not accept individuals with a criminal history and felony drug use within the past 3 years. The maximum number of residents at one time is 16. Thirty days in any one-year period is the maximum stay. However, a stay can be shortened if house rules are broken. Some rules: No alcohol and smoking allowed on the premises; residents must clean their rooms and community areas; curfew hours and quiet hours also pertain; no visitors are allowed in the house. 

River Haven Homeless Shelter educates its residents about services such as the food pantry, services for rental assistance, medical assistance, mental health programs, food share program, child care, W2, or anything else to help them make better choices . We also require them to report job search information to a case manager if a resident is not employed but could be. River Haven is staffed 24 hours a day, with a case worker on duty 7 days a week.  The case worker makes sure the house rules are followed. The project is always looking for volunteers to act as mentors when the opportunity arises.

We do encourage workshops and ideas for workshops at the shelter for the residents for personal enrichment such as cooking, knitting, kids projects, rent smart, budgeting etc.  We also provide tours of the shelter, please contacts us.

Call River Haven at 608-742-7687 if you would be willing to donate items or to volunteer. 

The vast majority of people who experience homelessness do so for a relatively short period of time. A small percentage remain homeless for a long period of time, usually because of serious disabilities. These are the "chronically homeless".

This realization that only a small percentage of the homeless are using more than half of the resources has created the national Housing First approach, where the chronically homeless are assisted with housing first and then helped with their other problems through intense case management. This approach is less expensive than the traditional approach to chronic homelessness, and it opens up community resources for others in need.