Hillcrest Transitional Housing and the St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity celebrated a new partnership Thursday in efforts to help families in need.

“We are partnering with Blue Skies Home Care LLC and Habitat for Humanity to construct a universal design apartment to be able to house anybody who has any type of disability,” said Shannen White, Affiliate Dir. of Hillcrest Transitional Housing of Northwest Missouri. “Wither it be a sight impairment, hearing impairment or anybody who has to utilize a wheelchair.”

Hillcrest is a 90 day transitional housing facility that tries to take homeless individuals or families and help them to become self-sufficient.

“It takes six to eight weeks to get into the program,” said White. “All their finances are strictly tracked by our case management department and we dive into their finances and we have a priority where they pay off certain bills so they can be self-sufficient. A lot of our residents are homeless because they have a $1,000 utility bill that they can’t pay of off to be able to go into a lease of their own.”

In order to offer Hillcrest services to everyone included families and individuals with physical disabilities, the agencies are teaming up to renovate an apartment on 3000 Parkway A in St. Joseph.

“We’re going to widen all the doorways, upgrade some of the flooring, give it a good new paint job, lower and redo the kitchen, we have to put some new plumbing and electrical in the kitchen to allow the washer and dryer in there, and obviously new cabinets that are universal and we also have to create an ADA and accessible bathroom so we’ll have to do a roll-in shower,” said Melissa Koch, St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity Dir.

Koch said she expects the entire protect to take six to eight months to complete.

For more information, to donate or to volunteer, call 816-689-1383, stop by the office at 3000 Parkway A.