Roodhouse gift shop hopes to help homeless

By Editor | August 13, 2025 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Twenty years ago, no one imagined that homelessness would become a problem in Greene County, but sadly, it has. Almost every community has at least one person who doesn’t have a physical residence they can call home.
Some are squatting in abandoned houses while some are calling a storage unit “home.” Regardless of the reason, the fact is that homelessness is no longer just a problem for bigger cities.
Thankfully, there are those who are trying to combat this problem. The People Helping People Gift Shop, located at 1003 Thompson St. in Roodhouse hopes to be able to help at least some of those living without shelter.
“At last count we had 30 homeless people in Roodhouse,” Gift Shop Organizer Janelle Bishop said. “Our main goal right now is to put these people to work – not just to give them a free handout.”
For example, Bishop said one of their customers spent the morning handing out drinks at the North Greene Back To School Bash.
“He came to us as a recovering meth addict and he has been working for us and the Salt of the Earth Church,” Bishop said. “We have managed to find him a job and he also comes over and works for the store for items or things that he needs because when he got here he didn’t have anything but the backpack on his back.”
Bishop said it is important to find them some kind of work so they can feel like a productive member of society.
“You might say what we are doing is more of a hand-up than a hand out,” she said. “We want to put these people to work instead of just giving them what they need.”
The homeless in Roodhouse have it better than the homeless in other communities because of the Health Department. The Health Department received a grant which they used to purchase a washing machine and dryer for use by not just the homeless, but anyone who finds themselves in need of washing their clothing.
They also have a shower which they let the homeless use to shower in addition to a car that was purchased to help get people to their doctor’s appointments or perhaps meetings that deal with addiction problems.
“But for the most part, our long term goal is we want to help them find housing,” Bishop said. “We know there is a shortage of low-income housing in the area because they are redoing the housing in White Hall, but what we want to do is we want to start buying property which we can turn into housing.”
People Helping People has a 12 member Board of Directors and Bishop said one some of them have experience writing grants.
“We have a couple of grant writers on our board that are going to start writing grants that, if received, will enable us to start buying property,” she said. “Then, we want to put the homeless to work because we have learned very quickly that you can’t give people cash because they don’t know how to handle their money.”
Bishop has a solution for that as well.
“I’m going to start teaching life skills classes at the Health Department,” she said. “We are going to do it in correlation with People Helping People and start helping them learn how to budget their money and manage it so when we get these different houses and properties bought for the program, if we have someone who maybe can’t pay their rent, we can use the barter system. We will pay the utilities and rent, but they have to do a certain amount of work for that help.”
They are lofty goals, indeed, but Bishop has faith it will all come together and make a difference in the community.
“This is what we want to set up, but we are just now getting it off the ground,” she said. “We have a lot of people on the board that are gung ho about it and want to do whatever they can to help people in the community.”
Until those grants come through, however, they need to do some fundraising.
“We are going to have a fall festival in the very near future, though we haven’t picked out a date for it yet,” Bishop said “We are going to also do a carnival for a fundraiser for the People Helping People program which, hopefully, will be a launching pad for getting some of the housing that we are looking for. Then, later on, we are also going to do another fundraiser with White Hall Pottery.”
But the long term goal is to get housing for the homeless.
“We want to put the homeless to work and give them things to do that maybe needs done in the community,” Bishop said. “Maybe we have empty lots that need cleaned. We can take that work in trade for their rent, utilities or even food. We also want to get a food pantry here in Roodhouse.”
People Helping People is located in what used to be Soul’s Harbor Apostolic Fellowship Hall, which is the building behind the church on Thompson St.
“That is what we are using right now, but as we grow and get bigger, we are going to need more space,” Bishop said. “We have that building full plus the shed next door which is for the overflow and the bigger items like tables and chairs. We are just so excited. Big things are happening here.”