Today the Carthage Crisis Center is housed in a small, 3,100-square-foot building and has a maximum, and uncomfortable, capacity of about 16 people.
Soon it will have between 31,000 and 35,000 square feet available with comfortable facilities for five families, 15 men and eight women, proper laundry and dining facilities and a recreation area, among other amenities.
Crisis Center Director Brian Bisbee said construction continues on the building at the corner of Central Avenue and Main Street donated last spring to the center by Leggett and Platt.
The group has scheduled two workdays this Labor Day weekend from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday and Monday.
"We're open to whatever people want to do, people of different skill levels," Bisbee said. "If someone says all they can do is sweep, we have plenty of sweeping that needs to be done. If all you can do is paint, we have plenty of painting that needs to be done. If you can put up walls or work with drywall, we've got that to do. If you want to sort items, we have sorting that needs to be done. We have a number of different things people can do."
In a tour of the new facility, Bisbee showed off some of furniture, appliances, material and the dozens of carpet rolls donated by area businesses to help finish the building.
Bisbee said the center hopes to move to the new building by the end of fall.
"Whether or not we actually do that is another thing," Bisbee said as he walked swiftly through the building, turning off lights in unoccupied rooms.
Bisbee admitted to being obsessed with making sure not one watt of electricity was wasted.
"We're putting in a solar heating unit in the recreation room," Bisbee said. "It won't heat the entire building, but it will help. We've worked on a lot of features to cut operating costs in the new building. We're using waterless urinals, energy efficient appliances, energy efficient lights, we've installed a new roof and insulation everywhere and we've installed flow-restricted showers.
"This is a big building and we know operating costs will go up, but we're working to keep costs down to the degree possible."
