The shelter's mission is to provide support for those who are homeless in Delta County, Michigan, through the cooperative efforts of an interfaith coalition and various social service agencies, by offering a safe emergency shelter and an opportunity for these individuals to choose a path of successful transition to independence.

Faith-based rotating emergency homeless shelters have been meeting the needs of individuals who are homeless and displaced in communities across the country for decades.

Hope at the Inn (HATI) was developed in 2013 utilizing the knowledge and experience gained from similar shelters already in existence. In addition, HATI Boards and Committees are working to ensure the HATI community is one in which no individual who is homless is without an opportunity to obtain emergency shelter, suitable housing, and the services and the support essential to becoming self-sufficient.  Hope at the Inn will strive to honor the dignity and diversity of each person served.

HATI's underlying goal is to enable Guests to find or maintain employment, secure housing, and save funds for those expenses.

   To help Guests work toward independence, member congregations provide two meals per day, personal  hygiene kits, and transportation.  For the safety of Guests and Volunteers, the following are conditions for admission to the shelter:  a personal search, alcohol breathalyzer testing, and a criminal background check.

   In this setting, Volunteers must bear witness to Christ’s love to children of God by welcoming Guests, treating them  with warmth and respect, listening to them  with a sincere generosity of spirit, and treating them as brothers and sisters  in Christ, worthy of our concern. 

   Churches and Volunteers must seek  a balance between ensuring safety and preserving dignity, between compassionate care-giving and encouraging responsibility, and between maintaining authority and allowing personal choices.

   HATI boards and committees shall encourage communication and input from participating churches and volunteers.  HATI is not an agency of trained professional social workers, but a collaboration of churches and individuals who wish to make a difference.