www.GoodMorningGwinnett.com After nearly three years of talking about opening a homeless shelter, Homefirst Gwinnett is just about to cross the finish line.

Officials with the group, which was established in summer 2018 and is part of the United Way of Greater Atlanta’s Gwinnett County wing, said they anticipate opening their shelter in Norcross sometime this summer. It will be the only homeless shelter in Gwinnett County once its doors open.

“It feels tremendous,” HomeFirst Gwinnett Director Matt Elder said. “This has been a long time coming. We were ready to get everything going last March or April and then COVID hit and changed everything so dramatically.

“With the way our shelter is set up to have the three bedrooms and common areas, COVID made it far too difficult to try and make that work.”

An exact opening date for the shelter — whose location is not being publicized by HomeFirst Gwinnett in order to protect the privacy of the people it will help — has not been set yet. Once it does open, however, it will be able to help up to 20 residents at a time.

That includes both mothers with their children as well as single women.

“They can stay up to 90 total days,” Elder said. “They’ll have full wrap-around case management services like mental health and substance abuse. We have a clinic run by Good Samaritan Health Clinic (so) they’ll have access to affordable healthcare and then we’ll bring in other partners for support services in addition to that.”

SOURCE: www.GwinnettDailyPost.com