Valley Restart Shelter, Inc.

About VALLEY RESTART SHELTER (VRS) VRS started 1989 as a daytime drop-in center and a cold weather shelter. Volunteer community leaders, along with leaders from Unity Church and United Methodist Church, came to the VRS house and staffed it to help the less fortunate of the Hemet/San Jacinto Valley area. In1995, VRS, now a public, not-for-profit California corporation, acquired our current home, the old YMCA property on Menlo Avenue and State Street in Hemet.
Goals of VRS 
The goals of VRS can be summarized in the following: Moving people out of homelessness and into a higher level of self-sufficiency and independence; and providing resources for essential needs, such as food, shelter, and clothing.
Mission Statement  Our mission is to provide essential services to families, adults, and children who lack basic resources to sustain themselves within our community.
Motto:
To teach. to train. to restart lives.
A Full Service Community Agency VRS is a family-oriented emergency shelter and resource center that operates 24-7. It provides both emergency homeless services to residents of Mid and Southwest Riverside County and on-going programs to the community. VRS is a working shelter, and the residents help support the program with the upkeep of the facility.

As part of our goal of helping our residents to restart their lives, VRS offers a number of programs, including: information and referrals, needs' assessment, homeless prevention education, and intensive case management related to gaining self-sufficiency and independence.

Our Case Managers work closely with our residents to see that they set goals for themselves and then help hold the residents accountable to reach those goals. Goal-setting begins during the intake process, and progress is monitored daily. Identifying the obstacles to self-sufficiency and the solutions or alternatives is the first step in our process. Our professional counselors help with crisis intervention. We are a drug and alcohol-free facility; we do-random observed testing. Many participants take advantage of the services offered, which is located across the street at Riverside County Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, as well as local daily NA meetings.
As part of our goal to return our participants to the community in active, self-sufficient roles, our program teaches money management. We encourage saving money earned with a mandatory savings of 80% of all income sources. This mechanism supports efforts while staying at VRS so they are prepared to meet the costs associated with living in our community.
A True Community Project VRS is a partnership of the public, private, and religious sectors of the San Jacinto Valley. Many local businesses support our efforts along with a myriad of government agencies including: The Riverside County Departments of Public Social Services, Mental Health, Riverside County Sheriffs Department, City of Hemet Police and local service organizations. There is input into operations from the San Jacinto Valley Homeless Task Force, the Human Relations Council, Riverside County Housing and Homeless Continuum of Care, Adult Systems of Care, and the Interfaith Council.

Leaders of area faith-based and service groups collaborate their efforts to ensure that certain needs are met. These include volunteering, providing home cooked meals each night, fund raising activities throughout the area, and donations to our participants as well as to the Shelter in general.
How the Center Works 
Since 2003 the Executive Director, Linda Rogers, has provided leadership and carried out the mission of VRS. She works with the direction of a volunteer Board of Directors. The Board represents a variety of community interests. These are members from the community at large who give of their time to oversee the VRS facility with policy and procedures. Our Advisory Boards assist, and advise the Board of Directors in their deliberations.

Policies and procedures are managed through the administration and staff at VRS. In addition, community members and VRS participant volunteers assist in the day-to-day operations.

While the Operations Department manages the day-to-day facility activities, Case Management works with individual members of the VRS community to develop a restart action plan for independent living. Ultimately we hope to help our participants break the cycle of homelessness. Using intensive case management, we provide individualized referrals and support, life skills training, and job-finding skills.
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