By Alex Kramer  |   [email protected]

Iowa City’s homeless may have to find a new temporary shelter this winter.

The owners of last year’s temporary location, a vacant former Aldi at 1534 S. Gilbert St., will not donate the space this year.

“Right now, we’ve contacted and are working with anybody that knows where there might be an empty space for us to house the project at,” said Mark Sertterh, the resident services director at Shelter House. “We’re just contacting property owners at this time.”

Officials did not expect the gift to stick.

“They haven’t gifted it to us like they did last year,” Sertterh said. “That was just a temporary thing. They didn’t say they were going to do it ongoing or anything like that.”

Last year, the owners of the building heard about the cause and decided to help the Shelter House, because they had no immediate plans for the space, said Kevin Digmann, a co-owner of the facility.

“We’ve been working on some remodel plans, so we’ve got to get things started, doing renovations on the building,” Digmann said. “Unfortunately, we can’t sit on it for another six months and do the shelter again.”

Digmann and the other owners haven’t stopped looking to help, he said.

“We’re continually trying to help think of other ideas, of other buildings, other locations that might work with them to help them out,” he said. “We’re still keeping our eyes open, but so far no luck.”

The emergency center last year was very successful, aiding 124 people with an average of 26 staying each night.

“It was a very effective program. It met a lot of needs,” said Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan. “We felt like it was a very positive program and we’d like to see it repeated.”

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors committed money to the project last budget cycle, Sullivan said, but have not been asked to aid in the search for a new location.

“I do have a meeting with some folks from the Shelter House,” he said. “Perhaps helping find a location is what we’ll be talking about.”

Funding, however, is not viewed as a concern. According to Sertterh, Johnson County has committed $15,000 to the project, with the Community Foundation of Johnson County due to give $3,000.

“We’re also hopeful that the city of Iowa City would be able to provide funding,” Sertterh said. “We’ll definitely have funding for the project as long as we can find a space.”

There are many officials with their ears to the ground, but if a property cannot be secured, the project will be shut down. However, Sertterh said, there is a plan in place for this possibility.

“What we’ll plan on offering, and what we have done in years past — the Shelter House will actually open our lobby up for extra people,” he said. “The city has for the last three years granted us the ability to go over our capacity during the winter months.”

Though the solution is helpful, it is not ideal, as people who stay in the facility must abide by a sobriety rule and other rules of the Shelter House, Sertterh said.

“There will be a small subset of people that are unable to get shelter that probably need it in our community: those who battle with sobriety or are unwilling to abide by the rules of the Shelter House,” he said. “Because of this, there’s a small number of homeless people in Iowa City that won’t be able to find shelter if we don’t find a place.”

The Shelter House officials believe they’ll find a space, Sertterh said.

“We’re hopeful that we’re going to be able to find a place and that somebody in the community is going to come through for us right now,” he said.