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WENTWORTH — For Portia Parris, finding a new site for a temporary homeless shelter is one item checked off the list of things that need to be done to help the county’s homeless population.

Next on that list: finding a site for a permanent shelter, educating the community about homelessness and bringing together other county agencies to help in those efforts.

“We need to create dialogue in this community,” said Parris, chairwoman of the board of Rockingham County Help for Homeless.

The group’s long-term goal is to find or build a permanent shelter that will adequately house men, women and children. But it has focused for the past year on finding an acceptable temporary site.

“Right now, we need a place that’s gonna be warm and dry, to be perfectly honest,” board Treasurer Dick Frohock said this week.

The shelter’s previous site, the former St. Mary’s by the Highway Episcopal Church on N.C. 87 in Eden, was sold by the diocese.

Parris said a new building was secured on Wednesday. She declined to give details about it, including the location, saying there are formalities that must be worked out. “We are anticipating opening Jan. 2, ” she said.

Help For Homeless provides other services, such as substance abuse counseling and transitional housing. Ideally, Parris said, any permanent shelter site also would house the agency’s administrative offices, a day center and some transitional housing.

It’s a goal that will take a concerted effort, Parris said, and the community must come together to support the 10-year plan to eliminate, or at least reduce, the county’s homeless problem.

She said many of the groups that help people who are homeless or in danger of becoming so, duplicate services. She also said numbers that are reported to state and federal agencies don’t accurately reflect the number of people the county’s agencies are helping.

“A lot of money that could come to this community — it just hasn’t happened,” Parris said. “That’s where the dialogue and the collaboration come into play.”

Help For Homeless must also tackle the stigma surrounding homelessness, she said.

Those in danger of becoming homeless, include the family who lost its home to a fire or the person who can no longer work because of a disability, Parris said. “Homelessness now has a new face.”

Contact Jonnelle Davis at 627-4881, Ext. 126, or jonnelle.davis@news-record.com