Matthew Stone, who was living in a tent with his dog in the woods of a central Illinois city, was among the first 55 residents to move into Bloomington’s first shelter village. A fully enclosed campus with a bathhouse and community center and 48 tiny sleeping cabins, The Bridge can accommodate 56 adults. It cost $2.7 million, two thirds from private donations and the rest from a county grant. By meeting people's basic needs, Home Sweet Homes Ministries provides the bridge people need to leave homelessness behind, says CEO Matt Burgess, and one person has already moved into permanent housing. "We got our bed over on the far wall. We got our microwave and refrigerator behind the door,” says Stone. “We got our armoire over here that we can put all of our clothes in, and then we got our desk and our chair." Alarm clocks in each cabin help residents keep up with their appointments. Burgess came up with the idea after looking at four communities which had built shelter villages: Burlington, Vermont; Denver, Colorado; Missoula, Montana and Austin, Texas, and visited the Missoula shelter village.
