Lebanon and Claremont winter shelters close as White River Junction facility rises
Lebanon's 14-bed winter shelter and Claremont's 24-bed Warm Welcome Shelter have closed, pushing unhoused residents into a thin regional safety net until White River Junction opens.
People who used Lebanon’s 14-bed winter shelter for a cot, a shower and one hot meal now have to look elsewhere to sleep, and Claremont’s overnight Warm Welcome Shelter has shut down too, removing up to 24 more seasonal beds from the Upper Valley’s already tight housing safety net.
The Lebanon Emergency Winter Shelter at 160 Mechanic Street opened Jan. 3 and was scheduled to close the morning of April 13. Upper Valley Haven said the shelter actually closed April 15 after serving 73 different people this season, with the building full on nearly every night it was open. When space ran out, the shelter sometimes paid for hotel rooms so guests would not be left outside.
That small building still mattered because demand was steady. In its first season, the Lebanon shelter kept 53 people warm and dry over 82 nights. Lebanon spent just under $169,000 converting the former commercial space, and the city budgeted $210,000 to contract with Upper Valley Haven for shelter services. The numbers show a recurring pattern, not a one-off burst of need: more people are looking for beds than the region can reliably hold.
For Sullivan County, the next stop is a patchwork. New Hampshire’s 2025-26 Cold Weather Resource List names Southwestern Community Services as the provider for Cheshire and Sullivan counties, and points people to the Warm Welcome Shelter in Claremont, which ran overnight through the end of March, first come, first served, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Trinity Church said that shelter opened Dec. 1 and could take up to 24 guests. When those doors close for the season, people seeking shelter are pushed back to 211, municipal service offices, and nonprofit providers trying to stretch limited capacity across county lines.
The biggest relief is still months away. Upper Valley Haven has broken ground on the Patrick and Marcelle Leahy Shelter and Resource Center at 608 North Main Street in White River Junction, after surpassing its $10.2 million campaign goal. The 9,000-square-foot building is planned to include a 20-bed low-barrier emergency shelter, a daytime resource center, housing help, health care connections, employment support, public-benefits access, computer workstations and private meeting rooms. The Haven says it is designed to accept people without requiring identification or sobriety and will allow pets. Officials have said construction should finish in late spring, with doors expected to open later in 2026.
Until then, the region is still living with the gap between seasonal sheltering and year-round need. For Claremont, Lebanon and the rest of Sullivan County, the spring closures are less a finish line than another turn in a system that still depends on too few beds.
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