Since 2017, it has been offering temporary housing and rehabilitation services to those in need from Franklin and Essex counties.

In March, the Ecumenical Council completed the process of buying the 4,000-square-foot house on River Street, which it had previously been leasing for $400 per month. Thus Samaritan House continues its trajectory as a long-term community resource, and one that may become increasingly important as the effects of the pandemic are felt in the North Country.

Before the Ecumenical Council took over the house, it had been the property of a Catholic prayer group called Children of the Resurrection. For many years Sister Rita Mawn lived there, renting rooms to college students and managing a Catholic library and meeting space there.

Now the house is divided up into rooms that can house up to eight people, including two suites with their own cure porches. There’s a full kitchen where residents cook and eat together, as well as living rooms on both the first and second floor. Each bedroom has its own security lock. The house has six bathrooms and six security cameras in common areas.

Rich Loeber, president of the Ecumenical Council of Saranac Lake, and Ernie Hough, Samaritan House manager, sit on the couch in the shelter’s living room. (Enterprise photo — Amy Scattergood)

“The only overhead is food,” said Ernie Hough, the house manager and case worker, who is also a member of the Ecumenical Council as well as a 17-year staff member of Lakeside House, a supervised residence for psychiatrically disabled adults on Riverside Drive. Samaritan House residents purchase their own food through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and can also get food from local food pantries and meals from church programs. There’s a sign-up for community meals.

Off the kitchen toward the back of the house is a laundry and utility room that also operates as a Code Blue space. Code Blue is the name for what happens when the shelter gets a call to house a homeless person when it’s 35 degrees Fahrenheit or below and that someone needs to be sheltered even if the house is full. They’ve only gotten three or four such calls over the last three-and-a-half years, Rich Loeber, president of the Ecumenical Council, said as he sat on the front porch.

The third floor operates as a separate apartment that the Samaritan House has given rent-free to an occupant who looks out for the house and its residents after hours and at night. For the last two-and-a-half years, the occupant has, conveniently, been a man with a master’s degree in social work.

“I get them dialed in to different services,” said Hough from his own seat on the front porch. Those services can include substance abuse programs, mental health services, career counselling and more.

Area businesses have also hired Samaritan House residents, including Hannaford Supermarket in Lake Placid and Little Italy pizzeria, the Blue Moon Cafe and Hotel Saranac in Saranac Lake.

The Samaritan House shelter is in a 1899 former cure cottage on River Street, Saranac Lake. (Enterprise photo — Amy Scattergood)

The gradual restoration of the property dates to 2016, when the council first began leasing the property. With the help of the town’s dozen or so churches as well as other local organizations, both work and housing items were donated to the shelter.

Local Quakers and Unitarians remodeled the living room. The Episcopalians, Lutherans and Methodists upgraded the kitchen. John Dimon of Human Power Planet Earth bike shop donated two bicycles. GoFish!, the thrift shop operated by High Peaks Church, allows residents to shop for free.

“God’s a good fundraiser,” said Loeber.

Whenever there’s a need for something, the folks at the Ecumenical Council put out a call to potential donors. When there weren’t enough bath towels recently, for example, the word went out.

“I could have opened up a Bed, Bath & Beyond,” said Hough.

Samaritan House gets its funding from three main sources: the churches that belong to the Ecumenical Council, each of which contribute from their annual budgets; grants; and public donations.

Since Samaritan House opened, 253 people have been through the program. Of those, 208 have been men and 45 women; 209 were from Franklin County, 29 from Essex County, and 15 were referred from either psychiatric units or the Saranac Lake Police Department, or were self-referred. The first year, the shelter housed 65 residents; in 2018 it was up to 94; in 2019 the number was 69; and this year, there have been 29 folks through the doors to date.

The average length of stay, said Loeber, is three to four months.

This has changed some since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order putting a moratorium on residential evictions. This moratorium has been extended a few times, most recently to October. In a few cases, said Hough, Samaritan House has let residents stay longer than the four months, though in the summer, people were eager to move on when their time was up.

Asked whether they anticipated rising numbers of those needing shelter as the pandemic and the economic fallout from it continues, both Loeber and Hough nodded.

“In Saranac Lake, it’s there,” said Hough of homelessness. “Northern Franklin County is more of an issue,” he said, though Essex County has a “significant” issue as well.

For now, though, Samaritan House has been able to meet the demand — thanks to hard work, the support and generosity of local folks, and someone’s extensive towel collection.