ST LOUIS — In April, Anthony D’Agostino was alarmed by a number.

The CEO of Peter & Paul Community Services was meeting with other service providers to discuss the rise of homelessness in St. Louis. It’s been an ongoing concern in the region, and nearly every city in America, because of a combination of factors. They include the end of federal funding that helped keep low-income renters in their homes or apartments following the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April, D’Agostino learned, there were about 2,200 homeless people in the region. Most were in shelters or some sort of transitional housing, and some were on the streets.

It was about 500 more people needing help with permanent shelter than the previous April.

A few weeks later, the May 16 tornado carved a devastating path of destruction through north St. Louis and made hundreds more people functionally homeless overnight.

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“This was a crisis before the tornado hit,” D’Agostino said.

Since then, the largest shelter Peter & Paul runs, in the former Little Sisters of the Poor complex on North Florissant Avenue, has become a hub of activity. The complex, an 8-story tower and a former convent, became a temporary haven for folks displaced by the tornado. Most of them would like to return to their homes in coming weeks or months, once the flow of city, state and federal aid starts the long rebuilding process.

Among the first to move into the tower were some residents of Alumnus Gardens, an apartment complex for low-income senior citizens in the Greater Ville neighborhood.

The old chapel of the Little Sisters of the Poor complex in north St. Louis has been converted to a men’s shelter as part of the Peter & Paul Community Campus.

The tornado threw a wrench into Peter & Paul’s plans for the complex, which needed extensive renovations when the nonprofit purchased the building with the help of the city a year ago. The shelter’s immediate purpose was to be a larger version of the one run for decades in the basement of Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Soulard. There, 60 men were cramped into bunkbeds and had to vacate the building during the day.

Now, the old chapel of the Little Sisters building has room for 100 men. The first floor of the convent building is being remodeled so each man can have private space, in addition to laundry and lounging space. They will also have access to three meals a day, provided by a commercial kitchen elsewhere in the building.

D’Agostino’s plan was to slowly remodel each floor of the complex and partner with other agencies, including some that provide social services to the homeless population. Some of that was already happening before the tornado.

The nonprofit Places for People , for instance, is remodeling a space of the building to provide a behavioral health clinic; there are 15 apartments for transitional housing funded by the Department of Mental Health; there’s a floor that since September has served the immigrant community; and other floors are being run by homeless service agencies Gateway 180 and Horizon Housing .

But the tornado required D’Agostino to open floors that weren’t quite ready and triage issues as they arose, such as spending thousands of dollars to fix plumbing and other problems.

“The afternoon the tornado happened, we were inundated with calls,” D’Agostino said. “It hasn’t turned off. It’s a constant battle of how many people can we bring in and how many can we direct to other places.”

The facility currently is hosting about 60 people displaced by the tornado and expects that number to climb to 100 by the end of the month.

Elsewhere in the city, 161 people are staying at four Red Cross shelters set up after the tornado. That’s down from a high of 250 people in the days immediately after May 16.

The Peter & Paul Community Campus is in the former Little Sisters of the Poor complex in north St. Louis. Post-Dispatch photo by Tony Messenger.

“We work with everyone in our shelters to determine next steps and longer-term housing solutions,” said Red Cross regional communications director Sharon Watson.

At least some of the displaced folks have previously had to navigate the difficulties of being homeless. D’Agostino found that out when he was talking to one of the people at his shelter who lived in the Alumnus Gardens apartments.

“I’ve been here before,” she told him.

Indeed, parts of the Little Sisters building had been used as a homeless shelter before Peter & Paul bought it. The woman who stayed there for a time was able to get the help she needed and a roof over her head — until the tornado ripped that roof away.

She will have a place to go once the apartment complex is repaired, but that might not be the case for some folks whose houses were toppled.

“Where are we going to find the funds to sustain this help?” D’Agostino asks.

His nonprofit gets about 37 percent of its funding from the federal government, which is contemplating cuts to some areas that traditionally help people who are homeless.

“I have no idea,” he said. “We’re in for a long haul.”

If your home was damaged by the tornado, you can seek financial help from the Red Cross at: www.redcross.org/gethelp ; or call 1-800-Red-Cross.

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