Welcome House Emergency Shelter
The Welcome House of South County’s emergency shelter program provides shelter 24/7.  We provide a self-service breakfast, a daily soup kitchen,  as well as a communal dinner for residents daily at 6 p.m. We determine social service needs upon intake and they are expanded upon as the guest becomes more comfortable with us or we uncover something that needs to be immediately addressed.
We require that guests perform 8 to 10 hours per week of community service, done either in-house (answering phones, taking in donations, etc.) or by doing routine maintenance, yard work, etc. at one of our other properties. Guest also must complete assigned daily chores.
Once they have a job, we require guests to purchase 1 lb. of coffee and 1 gallon of milk a week to support the house. Guests are also required to save 50% of any money they receive. This is checked weekly.
Random drug & alcohol testing is conducted and guests sign a statement of understanding of this policy and its consequences upon arrival. All medications with the exception of inhalers and Nitro are kept locked at all times. A current guest will provide a brief orientation to each new guest upon arrival.
Guests usually stay at Welcome House until such time as they have secure enough money to move into an apartment or can find an acceptable living arrangement The average stay is 48.8 days.
We offer an in house (closed) AA meeting on Monday evening with two additional (Open) evening meetings on Wed and Thursdays starting at 7pm. We have direct access to South Shore Mental Health, Thundermist Health Center, South County Community Action, Phoenix House/Sympatico and the Johnnycake Center. We are on a RIPTA bus line and also have easy access to Adult Education, the RI Unemployment office and State of RI Motor Vehicle Registry for State IDs.

The homeless of Rhode Island’s Washington County, are our primary focus however, given room availability we accept people statewide. Many of our guests are referred by the police, social service agencies, other shelters, friends in the community, hospitals, past clients and SSTAR Detox to mention a few.

General characteristics of our guests include joblessness, sudden health problems, ETOH and drug problems, serious depression, or other serious long term psychiatric problems. Other issues which bring guests to WH are domestic violence without children, prison release and 18 year olds bring thrown out.

Welcome House is handicap accessible and intake can be completed with large print type. We have also used on occasion translators for hearing impaired and other languages.