Immaculate Conception Shelter History

On a bitter cold morning in 1981, a priest at the Immaculate Conception Church at the corner of Park and Hungerford streets in Hartford discovered a homeless man frozen to death near the church steps.

Vowing that such a tragedy would never happen again, parish priests opened the basement of the church to homeless men who had no other place to go. Church members volunteered – cooking meals and donating clothing for the men.

As the number of homeless people in Hartford increased, as did the need for an organization to respond to the issue of homelessness. The Immaculate Conception Shelter & Housing Corporation (ICSHC) was formed in 1990, with the Rev. John Gregory Davis as Executive Director.

Rev. Davis was on loan from the First Church of Windsor. The two churches worked collaboratively in accordance with their original by-laws. It was Rev. Davis and his first board of directors who developed Immaculate’s first mission statement which asserted that “Because housing is a human right, the Immaculate Conception Shelter & Housing Corporation will, with unconditional love, provide access to affordable housing and decent shelter, within a humane environment with compassionate services, for all people who are homeless, especially those without other options, thereby affirming their dignity and empowering them to enjoy well-being and full participation within the community.”

In 1998, a new opportunity became available to the homeless men staying at Immaculate. The program, called Shelter Plus Care, provided subsidized housing to homeless and disabled individuals. The program enabled a small number of men to access scattered site housing in Hartford with the case management team bringing services directly to them in their own homes.

Immaculate Conception Shelter & Housing Corporation and Immaculate Conception Church shared space until the church merged with St. Ann’s Church enabling ICSHC to purchase the property in 2000.

In January 2003, the old rectory building which housed all of Immaculate’s office space, a computer lab and library for shelter residents, as well as the food pantry was destroyed by a massive fire. “We will rebuild,” promised then Executive Director, Patti White. “The shelter is open, and we’ll be here for those who need us.” The staff was quickly relocated to the old sanctuary space and services continued.

Frustrated with the inability to house some of our hardest-to-serve homeless men, Immaculate began conceptualizing a program where our most chronic and disabled residents would have an opportunity to get into apartments of their own. It was essential to the staff to be able to house those individuals who were not going to be housed any other way. 

Through funding granted in 2003 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Immaculate’s housing program, Casa de Francisco, named after a beloved client who passed away in 2003, was on its way. Each year, the Immaculate applies for funding for this program. Currently, 100 individuals are housed in scattered site apartments.

In keeping with our mission, Immaculate’s Board of Directors and staff recently reframed the goals and work of the organization, approving a bold and exciting five year business plan that transitions ICSHC from an agency focused primarily on emergency shelter services to a Housing First Model that places chronically homeless individuals in housing with intensive wrap-around services.

We are in the next phase of our transition which includes the construction of a 50-unit apartment building serving chronically homeless and low-income clients. This project, made possible through Next Steps funding, just recently broke ground in July, 2009, with occupancy slated for late 2010.