Love INC of Delmarva partners with other organizations to aid people who are struggling with homelessness

Serving the mid-Delmarva area and operating out of Seaford, Love INC of Mid Delmarva (Love INC.) serves as one of the top organizations to aid those struggling with homelessness. With dozens of churches and other organizations serving as partners and sponsors, Love INC has helped thousands of individuals meet their needs and prevented hundreds from becoming homeless.

Amanda Hall works as the program’s director for Love INC. “I onboard all the volunteers, train all the volunteers, oversee the transformational ministry classes, recruit the folks to actually facilitate them. I started recently taking on some Code Purple duties, and I just had my two year anniversary,” Hall explained. “At the very beginning I wanted to volunteer, and I guess God saw a little bit different than volunteering. So, I’m very honored to be here and work full-time here and I’m able to use my gifts here to serve the community.”

While Love INC does not operate as a shelter, they do offer a variety of resources to the homeless population.

“The first place is our Connection Center, which is unique and is the heart of Love INC. Everyone that comes through or wants to do anything with Love INC goes through the Connection Center,” Hall said. “We have two staff in there and probably at least 10 volunteers and they take the calls. People can call whether they want food, shelter, electric help, rent help, no matter what they’re looking for that’s their first stop.”

Hall continued to explain that in the Connection Center there is a resource library, with over 100 church partners that have helped house nearly 70 people. “Our thing is not to just keep feeding and feeding the need, it’s to help (homeless people) transition so they can live on their own. Once people come through that’s identified to be like the 65 people that are looking to get out of that loop, we take them to our case management department,” Hall explained. “And from there we hold them more accountable and look at their circumstances to figure out what needs to be done to move them forward.”

In addition to the case management, there are also a number of classes that Love INC offers that go over financial assistance, financial responsibility, budgeting, and more.

Hall also spoke about the clothing closet that they have, which has a strict set of rules on what items can be taken, how many, and when they can be taken. “Life is geared around rules,” Hall said. “So even though it’s something small like that, everything is regulated in life, people don’t just do things. People come in, there’s a set time they come in, they can take so many items, they can’t just take and take and take, because other people need things too. It’s like going into a store.” Hall also explained that the laundry and shower services also require appointments, and that while food is available to any, they require proper identification. In addition to proper identification, Hall also explained that there are case managers available to help with acquiring birth certificates, social security numbers, identification, and more.

When it comes to work with other shelters and homelessness services, Hall explained that there currently isn’t any system in place that works together with the other organizations like Family Promise or Redemption City and others. “Right now, there’s feeding, clothing, shelter, those types of things, it’s duplicating services. Someone is going to go where it’s closer to them,” Hall said. “The thing that’s different is our partnership is so great and wide, and folks are (partnering) because they believe in our mission. We’re not just giving things out, because everyone has to be accountable for resources. People are donating to us, and we need to be good stewards for those things, and we can’t keep people in the cycle (of homelessness) we want to end the cycle.”

Hall said that the Connection Center is the primary way of referral for Love INC and its partners. “We act as an identifier. We have people in our system and notes on them, so that when they call we can look them up in our system and see that, ‘Oh you were in case management, what happened?’,” Hall said. “It’s a library of all our information, and that’s where we’re different. That’s why they go through the connection center, so we can see if people are continual or actually serious about trying to get help.”

Hall also spoke about a story in the past where a church had been putting a homeless individual into a hotel for a while, and only later found out that they were in Love INC’s system, and had they talked to Love INC sooner, they wouldn’t have been taken advantage of. “We want to get the people that are falling through the net, that one in 10 that don’t want to do this anymore and want to get out of homelessness,” Hall said.

From Dec. 1, 2025, to March 15, 2026, Love INC works on Code Purple with different churches and sites to open up a wintertime shelter. “We get volunteers to man the sites, we’ll have someone that does intake, that stays overnight, and we’ll put cops out there as well,” said Hall. “Most of them the capacity is 14 people, and we have a system where volunteers can register and the homeless people can put information in and get a bed from Bethany Beach to Georgetown to Milford or here in Seaford.”

Additionally, Hall mentioned that Love INC also opened up a shelter at their main building in Seaford for women during the winter. “All hands are on deck, we can see every day in the system that’s manned and not manned, and it’s a priority to make sure we have volunteers (at these shelters),” Hall said. “We’re being proactive, we’re trying to make sure we have people for these overnight stays.”

For more information on how you can volunteer, sign up for Code Purple, or otherwise get involved with Love INC and its services, visit the Love INC website at www.loveincofmiddelmarva.org, or call the Connection Center at 302-629-7050.