The Firehouse Shelter serves more homeless men than any agency in the state of Alabama and operates the broadest, most comprehensive continuum of services for Birmingham’s homeless. At the heart of our mission are chronic hard-core homeless men, 90% of whom come from the Birmingham metro area.
Nearly 67% of the men who enter our doors are chronically homeless, which means that they have been homeless at least 4X in the past 3 years or have spent at least one year straight living on the streets (park bench, abandoned building, parked car, an alley way, etc). It is documented that 30% of these men have a diagnosed severe mental illness. Some estimates place the mental illness numbers as high as 70%.
We have found the issues and barriers to overcoming chronic homelessness to be complex and costly. Change takes time and what these men need are time – time to get to the root of their problems, time to heal, and time to put together an action plan that will allow them to achieve their full potential.
We believe that we can transform these lives by working together and partnering with other social service agencies that share our mission of re-weaving homeless men back into the fabric of society.