The NGP program helped the New London Homeless Hospitality Center avoid duplication of services by helping us purchase a bus to transport our guests between the shelter site and our local community meal center. When we developed our new shelter site we faced the decision of whether to serve meals. Outfitting the new shelter space with a kitchen would have been expensive. Ongoing costs of providing food would have stretched our already overextended budget. But people experiencing homelessness need access to meals.

New London is, however, blessed to have an outstanding meal center (soup kitchen) that serves two meals a day. The meal center was too far from the shelter for people to walk but adding a bus purchased with NGP program funds allowed us to partner. The New London Homeless Hospitality Center avoided the costs of serving food, the Community Meal Center was able to continue its mission and our guests avoided the isolation of doing everything in the same place. A great partnership that really serves people made possible with the NGP investment!