A homeless shelter for women and children will be the first of its kind in Beaufort County, but it still needs a home.

The Open Door Community Center came to fruition in October of 2016, and it’s been progressing ever since, according to Dot Moate, president of the nonprofit. She said the logistics are taken care of — all of the permits, documentations, rules and regulations have been approved, and now, the organization faces an ongoing search for a home, something Moate described as “discouraging.”

“We’re ready to go. We just need a building,” Moate said.

Moate said the Board of Adjustments has already denied them a building earlier this year, so they went back to the drawing board. She said she was looking at various homeless shelters in surrounding counties for example, but none of them seemed to fit her vision.

“There are no models. They are all different. We couldn’t find the perfect model, so we are taking bits and pieces of all of them and forming our own to meet the needs of Washington and Beaufort County,” Moate said.

Moate said the shelters mission has been commonly confused with The Ruth’s House mission, which is a nonprofit in Washington that works to provide shelter for victims of domestic violence. Moate said

“They can’t take just a homeless person, they can only take them if they’ve been abused. When our facility is open, we won’t be able to take abused women, unless she’s homeless,” Moate explained.

Moate said she was hoping to get the shelter complete and ready to use before the cold winter months, but the setback makes the goal unlikely. She said it’s unlikely it will be ready before the first of the year due to the lengthy process ahead of her — once they find a place, it will need to be refurbished and changed to meet their specific needs.

However, Moate remains optimistic that she will soon find the spot to build the shelter.

“We’re going to move on and find something else,” Moate said.