“Going into those shelters was one of the most horrendous experiences you could possibly imagine.”

There’s a guy nervously tapping the buttons of an intercom outside a weathered office building on the upper end of Washington Avenue. His clothes are tattered, and the words spewing from his mouth aren’t being strung together in any form or fashion that would make sense to those walking past him on this sweltering summer afternoon. There are dozens of others like him up and down this street.

Someone inside is listening, however.

Through the door, up a maze-like staircase and inside a tiny, windowless room in the bowels of the Calvary Chapel is Hope in Miami Beach, a homeless-outreach office that has been giving aid to gentlemen such as the jittery fellow at the door for more than a year now.

Hope has been shut for a couple of weeks, and while its temporary closure won’t be noticed by most Miami Beach residents, it will be by this city’s homeless population, several of whom make it a point to regularly visit the little haven hidden away above a Miami Subs restaurant.

“We have people that come here every day for a bar of soap, to see if they’ve received any mail, or just to talk,” says Mary Girard, the lone worker in the cramped office. “I think it can be a reassuring space.”

Hope first opened in 2005 after local priest Rev. Pedro Martinez made one of his regular visits to Miami Beach. He noticed the swelling number of homeless people on the streets, and vowed to do something about it, consulting with city officials about what services could be provided.

“One day I was walking with my wife on Ocean Drive and I saw a heaping pile of doo-doo in the street,” Martinez says. “I followed the trail and found a man bathing in the public restrooms. In that moment I asked the Lord who could help these people, and he said that I should. That’s how Hope started, but really, we all should be helping out however we can.”

With the city making the introductions, Hope in Miami Beach was born as a collaboration between Martinez — who had secured funding to help the local homeless from Esperanza USA, a nationwide coalition of Hispanic Christians, churches and ministries — and Calvary Church, which had a space, as well as volunteers from its other programs to work on a new homelessness initiative.

Since then, the office has provided a means for homeless people to acquire their IDs, birth certificates or other documents that may help them get back on their feet.

“You can’t do anything in this country without an ID, even go into a shelter, so it’s an important service for many of the people who come here,” Girard says.

It’s a service previously unique to Hope. The city of Miami Beach’s Neighborhood Services Office started assisting homeless individuals with IDs only recently.

Every day, Neighborhood Services vehicles can be seen on Beach streets, with workers tending to homeless people throughout the city and seeking to get them into one of the 46 beds Miami Beach has in Miami shelters. However, for several people living on the street, shelters aren’t viewed as a way out.

Continued