Background
Ruth Meiers Hospitality House opened its doors in 1987. Our home is named after North Dakota’s former lieutenant governor, Ruth Meiers, and rooted in her belief that each individual is unique with value and talents deserving respect and appreciation.
We serve those in our community who are at risk or in need. These men, women and children go without proper food, shelter and essential medical care on a daily basis due to a variety of factors including: mental illness, physical disability, addictions, domestic violence, family break-up and health problems.
Ruth Meiers has grown over the years from the first house that could house seven people to the current programs that can house 68 people.
As a homeless shelter, the agency operates a number of different properties:
•Single Women and Women with Children Emergency Shelter can house 30 women and children and allows residents with children to stay 90 days and residents without children 30 days. Residents are assisted in job search, accessing permanent housing, and referrals to other services in the community. Our staff also provides case management, health care and educational services to residents.
•Men’s Emergency Shelter contains 18 beds, and allows residents to stay 30 days. Residents are assisted in job search, accessing permanent housing, and referrals to other services in the community. Our staff also provides case management, health care and educational services to residents.
•New Beginnings is a seven-unit transitional housing program that allows residents up to a 2-year stay before moving into permanent housing.
•HORIZONS provides, permanent housing to 25 individuals in a single room occupancy apartment complex.
Supplemental to the shelter services are a number of supportive services provided by Ruth Meiers Hospitality House:
•Stone Soup Kitchen provides a free noon meal to an average of 40 homeless and low-income people four days a week.
•Single Point of Entry: Ruth Meiers Hospitality House is the 24/7 single point of entry for the Bismarck/Mandan community. Homeless people or those at risk of becoming homeless are referred to the Single Point of Entry rather then being referred to a number of different agencies. Staff work with law enforcement officials, emergency housing providers, churches and other helping agencies to proactively move people off the streets and into housing.
•Supportive Housing serves chronically homeless individuals, providing them with case management support and assistance with placement within affordable housing.
•Food Pantry distributes five to eight thousand pounds of food monthly to individuals and families in need.
•Joanne’s Healthcare for the homeless clinic provides primary and preventative healthcare to iresidents in our homeless shelters who are uninsured or underinsured.
•Drop-In Center provides help to people who do not want to be sheltered and provides a safe place for them to get off the streets at night. Men and women over the age of 18 can come and have a hot meal, wash-up etc. The hours of operation are Sun –Thurs from 12:00AM-5:00AM and Sat – 1:00AM-6:00AM.
•Baby Boutique provides education to low-income expectant mothers on how to prevent birth defects and premature births, encourages pregnant women to get early and continuing prenatal care, educates expectant mothers on how to provide quality care to their babies, provides free CPR and first aid classes to mothers and encourages mothers to have their babies immunized. Expectant mothers earn incentives through working with other community programs that can be used to obtain items from The Baby Boutique. Mothers can stay in the program until their child reaches the age of two.
•Used Furniture Barn provides furniture to residents moving out of the shelter and into their own housing.
Ruth Meiers Hospitality House is very well known in the community. The agency could not survive without the dedicated support of community volunteers who work in the Soup Kitchen, put on food drives to keep the pantry shelves stocked and help us with our many fundraising events.
