Sherae Honeycutt

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Original Post

A metro homeless nonprofit is cleaning up after rain and a pipe burst flooded its building.

Hope Faith Ministries has a lot to rebuild after their first volunteer came in the morning of April 26 and saw water everywhere. Rain pushing against their failing roof put pressure on their sprinkler system, causing a pipe to burst and water started pouring from the ceiling.

“It pushed it down, which ended up popping it up off of a t-joint and flooding our loft area, which then came down to our client services area and our dry food pantry area,” Executive Director Sandra Ratterman said. “And it’s even gone downstairs, and it’s still raining in the basement.”

Ratterman said it cost them half their food supply and almost all of their electronics.

The damage has caused them to close their doors for now.

“It’s very sad, and I really wish I could help them in some other way,” Ratterman said of the homeless people the nonprofit serves. “All the one-off things that we offer. Private showers. There’s no place else that offers private showers for the homeless. Again, their mail is something that they really need. Especially this late in the month. They’re starting to get their disability checks and their food stamps and all of that, and that comes here, and they’re not going to be able to check that.”

She said most of the items can be replaced through insurance.

“For being able to replace that copy machine, that computer stuff, to be able to replace the food that we lost — insurance is going to be able to cover a lot of this, but there’s a deductible on that insurance that hurts a nonprofit,” Ratterman said.

The sign on the nonprofit’s door says they’re closed for Thursday, but Ratterman said they could be closed for about a week.

If you are looking to help, you can donate through the nonprofit’s website at faithhopeministries.org.