LEBANON, Mo. -- Mike Duran wants to open a new homeless shelter here. He's eyeing a site west of Lebanon near Phillipsburg, in a building that used to be an old boat factory.
Mike has been helping homeless people in Springfield for more than a decade. In fact, he says if he ever gets a shelter up and running near Lebanon, he wants to model it after Springfield's Victory Mission.
"It's just a perfect location. It's out of everybody's way, but it's actually right on I-44," said Duran.
Duran says it wasn't his idea to bring a homeless shelter to the Lebanon area. "We want to do something with this property," he said. The idea, he says, was God's.
"I always had a heart for the homeless, and then I came up here and we were talking at the coffee house about all the homeless people that were coming in here, and so the Lord just really pricked my heart again and said you really need to start working in your own community," said Duran.
"There were a lot of discussions at a local coffee shop and that's where they would sit before the day started and that's where they got to talk with several of the community people who were burdened by the same thing and were working for the same goal," said Amber Meredith, who runs the Free Store across the street from the coffee shop they would meet.
Meredith is also working to help the homeless in Lebanon. "Everybody's situation is different, their circumstances are different, and the need is different," said Meredith. She's says there's a growing need in Lebanon for a shelter.
