A Yankton shelter for those without a place to stay says it’s confident in its future despite nearly shutting down in late 2025.
Pathways Shelter for the Homeless serves individuals and families within a 60-mile radius of Yankton. The nonprofit does outreach, provides emergency shelters, partners with the Department of Corrections for male reentry services and more.
Courtney Wagner is the Resource Development Director for Pathways. She told SDPB the organization is standing strong, despite nearly shutting its doors Dec. 15 last year.
"Our funds weren’t the greatest,” Wagner said.
Wagner also said Pathways took a different approach to staffing in order to garner community support and generate operational funds.
“Before we had just an executive director and operations director. We never had a resource director who goes out and builds relationships out in the community and tries to do fundraising and all the things," Wagner said. "It’s a different realm, and ever since we had the conversation about our organization and providing awareness to the community and what we actually do, we’ve seen the Yankton community step up a little bit more.”
She said the organizational shift is a breath of relief.
“I think our resources have expanded so much since then, so I do feel confident that Pathways will continue down the road in terms of sustainability-wise,” Wagner said.
Though it’s certainly not without its challenges. Yankton’s homeless population isn’t as visible as bigger cities in the state like Sioux Falls, Wagner said, and the biggest barrier they’re seeing is a misconception about the homeless shelter.
“A lot of people think that people are just coming into the night, and they’re just staying and there’s no guidelines or requirements in order for them to be out and going out and getting a job or going out and applying for applications. When in reality we have case managers that are on their case load, in terms of, ‘Hey we’ve got to get our stuff together," Wagner said. "We need to be going out and about finding employment, going out and about finding housing’ so they can be successful. There’s that motivation piece behind it.”
Wagner says the nonprofit continues to seek volunteers, interns and financial aid to keep its doors open and provide services to the Yankton area.
Interested parties can find more information at the Pathways website.
