New Life Shelter opens new thrift store

Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Chad Bailey, pastor at Pine Street Baptist Church and New Life Homeless Shelter, folds a shirt for a customer. Noah Jones/Daily Mail

Nevada Daily Mail

After one year of serving transitional homeless people in Nevada, Pastor Chad Bailey of Pine Street Baptist Church and his homeless shelter have made improvements in the lives of those he has served.

Donnie Creamer and his wife, Talecia, battled drug and alcohol addiction and struggled with homelessness before a friend told the couple of the New Life Homeless Shelter.

"We got in a situation where we got homeless, and we was lost. We didn't have God in our lives," Donnie said.

New Life, a religious-based shelter, helps those who want to be productive citizens of the community, Bailey said.

"It benefits the community that way," he said. "What we are trying to do is build the kingdom of God here."

Bailey said after a year, New Life Shelter has housed around 60 people, and 40 of those the shelter helped have accepted religious principals.

"When I first heard it was a Christian based shelter, I didn't want to go there. I said, 'Oh, no,' but it saved our marriage," Donnie said. "We were on drugs and alcohol and fighting all kinds of fights. When we got into the shelter, it was all about the Lord because in the shelter, it's a Christian based shelter. God saved our marriage, through the shelter, I mean. If we had never been to the shelter, we would never be where we are now. We have a beautiful home now. Things are looking good."

The Creamers, now, both have jobs, a house and a vehicle, Talecia said. Taleica is working at Super 8 Motel and Donnie does paint and bodywork out of his house.

Over the past year, the shelter received all of its money, food and other necessary items via donations from individuals and churches. On Dec. 14, Bailey opened a thrift store on North Osage Boulevard to help raise money for the shelter.

"We're thinking what more can be done to help sustain New Life Shelter to take us through the next stages of what we want to do. That's the reason we established the store, sustainability. It's non-profit; it's all under the same thing, so it's going to help benefit the non-profit. It's pretty exciting."

The store, open Monday through Saturday, has seen a steady customer base throughout its first week, Bailey said. Perhaps more importantly, the shop also has donations coming in steadily as well. New Life Thrift Store takes donations and sells them. Proceeds of the sales will go towards running the thrift store and the homeless shelter. Bailey said the store takes everything from clothing, to household furniture. "We're doing everything," he said.

Donnie said he had helped to come up with the idea. He said he thought it would be a great idea to have a flea market that rented booth space to make sure there was some money coming in.

"We wouldn't even have to have worried about sales. But I think this is a great idea. It's all donated stuff to help the homeless," He said. "My understanding is, [proceeds] all goes toward the shelter."

The Creamers said they are willing to come and help at the store any time because the homeless shelter changed their lives.

"They call us, we come straight here," Talecia said. "We basically just clean for them."

Bailey said poverty and homelessness in Nevada is much higher than it would appear. On its surface, it can be difficult to see Nevadans without homes because many of the homeless population drift from a friend's couch to another.

"There is a study done every year, I have not heard the number from the [most recent study done] but the last one I had was 149 that were considered homeless. That means they, obviously, don't have a place to call their own, whether a house or a place to rent and that included people who were couch surfing." The numbers, Bailey said, came from local organizations that deal with homeless clientele.

The current shelter holds four beds, as allowed by the city, and Bailey said the shelter is forced to turn away about 30 to 40 people a month. When this happens, he works with other local agencies to try and help how he can.

"Most people don't think there are any homeless people in Nevada; there's a lot of homeless people in Nevada," Bailey said.

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