CLEVELAND — Dozens of women and children without a home to call their own continue to be turned away by Cleveland shelters because they're overcrowded.
The number of homeless families in need is simply pushing resources to the breaking point.
Last week, Laura’s Home told 96 women and children they were at capacity.
Now that doesn't necessarily mean they were forced to sleep on the street, but one homeless advocate told News 5 that we're dangerously close to that point.
“We've averaged every single day around 62 individuals that we've had to turn away between single women and mothers and their children," said Michael Hahn, City Mission program manager.
For years, News 5 has been keeping tabs on what some consider a crisis.
"Families more and more are pouring in to seek shelter, we don't have the ability to provide shelter for all the families," said Chris Knestrick, Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH).
When News 5 visited Laura's Home nearly two years ago, about 30 women and children were sleeping in the gym because there were no other open options available in Cleveland for emergency overflow.
"They are constantly full, they are busting at the seams," said Hahn.
Scenes like that are still playing out despite the City Mission and NEOCH sounding the alarm and pleading for more resources.
"There's people on a waiting list, which is totally inappropriate in our community that anyone would be waiting for shelter," said Knestrick.
Both agencies said Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland are not working fast enough to find a long-term shelter solution for our community's most vulnerable.
"If we don't find tangible ways to address that immediately we're going to continue to have this cycle of problems that we're facing with family homelessness in this county," said Hahn.
Knestrick wants to see more focus placed on prevention.
"Rather than trying to troubleshoot we need to move toward solutions. Right now, we have very limited funds that prevent homelessness," said Knestrick.
Hahn said he expects the trend of families being turned away from shelters to continue because of what he calls a lack of movement, and he wouldn't be surprised to be standing here a year from now still talking about the issue.
"The long-term effect of homelessness on these children and the trauma that they go through it's going to affect them for their life," said Hahn.
A spokesperson for Cuyahoga County told News 5 that the person who handles the issue was on vacation and directed us to the YWCA which doesn't even operate a family shelter.
We reached out to the City of Cleveland and are waiting to hear back on what plans are in place to address family homelessness and its strain on the current system.
RELATED: City Mission reports nearly 3,000 homeless children attending Cleveland schools
