PEORIA, Ill. — A sea of people gathered on the fourth floor of Dream Center Peoria to see the renovated space.
Andy King, Executive Director of Dream Center Peoria, said the new fourth floor has been years in the making.
“In the last three years, we’ve seen our homeless shelter here triple in number. So, we’ve had to adapt to what is happening in Peoria,” King said.
Dream Center expanded the homeless shelter from the third floor, which was made for 30-40 people, onto the third floor which can accommodate 128 people.
“And have a dining room, a kitchen, [a] rescue room for girls who have escaped sex trafficking, human trafficking, and a pregnancy room as well,” King said.
Reconstructing the fourth floor was a $1.1 million project, but it was only phase one.
“The next phase, we are hoping to start in January or February time, which is a commercial kitchen that will feed all the meals we serve right now,” King said.
The Dream Center serves around 70,000 to 80,000 meals a year to the homeless population and the after school program kids.
“We want to do that in-house. We want to do it better, we want to do it with dignity. So, we feel the only way to do that is if we can really provide something on site,” King said. “That’s going to be $800,000 or so.”
The Dream Center strives to meet the needs of the community.
“We’ve always said that we want to find a need and fill it. And all the things that you see throughout the building have just been responses to needs within the community. We saw a need with the homeless, and really have a good area for them. So we met that need,” King said.
After school programs for kids, a trade school, and more are needs the Dream Center is responding to meet.
