MONTICELLO — Kathy Kreiter, Sullivan County Federation for the Homeless Program Administrator, said any one person could be faced with an economic hardship that could cause them to become homeless.

It's something that she does not take lightly.

SCFH operates the only full-time soup kitchen in Sullivan County, which provides breakfast and lunch and is open five days a week at 9 Monticello Street in Monticello.

Kreiter has a passion for her job and helping people who are without homes and struggling.

“It's the best place I've ever worked,” said Kreiter.

When she started eight years ago, she did not know how work life and family would be interconnected.

One of her siblings was struggling economically after going on disability.

While he had a home, SCFH provided a warm meal for him and a sense of community.

Without SCFH, her brother otherwise would not be able to afford food on his low fixed disability income.

Kreiter's brother passed away eight months after she started working for SCFH.

“This was his family,” said Kreiter.

Her days now are filled with requests from people who either want to donate, help, or who need services themselves.

She does not turn anyone away.

“I've made a lot of friends here. Both from the clients and the volunteers,” said Kreiter.

SCFH also offers a food pantry every other Friday which gives out canned food, cereal, juice, pasta, and other staples.

For homeless veterans, SCFH also provides a food pantry for them on a separate day so they can pick up items they might need.

And for those with immediate and emergency needs, the food pantry is available 24 hours seven days a week.

Furthermore, SCFH offers housing and utility assistance programs to those living with HIV/AIDS.

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, in 2018, 552,830 people were homeless nationally. And 17 percent of them—or 91,897—live in New York State.

For Thanksgiving, the SCFH provides a full Thanksgiving meal from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m at 9 Monticello Street in Monticello.

And for Christmas, they hold a special event where children could meet Santa Claus and receive a gift on top of the free meal.

Recently SCFH is teaming up with the county to provide warming centers in Sullivan County from now until March 31, 2020, any time the temperature falls below 32 degrees outside.

This is part of New York State's “Code Blue” mandate.

The centers will be located in Liberty and Monticello and will need to provide staffing, heat, shelter, cots, blankets, bathrooms, light food, and water at these locations every night.

Kreiter said she is glad people will have somewhere to go during the cold months.

She said there is a definite need for housing in the county, saying that now there are fewer locations for emergency housing.

The Heritage Inn on Broadway in Monticello was recently shut down due to code violations and was one location that was used for emergency housing by the county.

“It's gone. It's really wiped out a chunk of the emergency housing,” said Kreiter.

She does not know where people can go now for housing.

A person she serves at the SCFH said he needs the warming center now more than ever. He is currently squatting in an abandoned building that has no heat.

Kreiter said she is helping him find alternative housing but said, “There's a lot of issues with the people we serve. From mental illness, drug and alcohol problems, and it does impede their ability to succeed or be successful in maintaining housing.”

Food for the pantry comes from many sources, and one of them is from the Hudson Valley Food Bank. Most of the time, Kreiter does not know what she is getting when she finds out that they will be making a delivery.

The truck is too big to come down Monticello Street, so relies on Schmidt's Wholesale, who provides a smaller truck that picks up the pallets and delivers them to SCFH.

On the day the Democrat visited SCFH, young adults from the Delaware Valley Job Corps Center were helping to unload what turned out to be six pallets of rice, beans, and other assorted non-perishable foods.

SCFH receives a lot of donations for their food pantry, and unfortunately, sometimes food is leftover or becomes spoiled before it is used, and they have no choice but to throw it away.

Next year that will change. After receiving grant money, SCFH will be able to vacuum seal food cooked or uncooked in plastic bags and freeze for later use.

This will prevent them from having food go to waste.

Furthermore, they can now make meal kits for people to take with them so they can reheat the meal in the microwave.

Kreiter said they have been giving out processed food, which she said can be unhealthy. “It's processed, and it's not good. This [vacuum seal food] would take healthy food and keep it from being wasted.”

In addition to the vacuum sealing equipment, they will have enough grant funding to purchase a walk-in freezer to store the vacuum-sealed food.

SCFH received funding from the Impact Foundation and the Community Foundation of Orange and Sullivan.

Kreiter said down the road, SCFH hopes to have a composting site, so they can put to use food scraps from the soup kitchen. The compost dirt that's made at the SCFH could be sold, with the profits going to fund SCFH.