SAN BERNARDINO - Outside, the February night is dreary and damp. Rain clouds gather on the horizon.

Inside, Roosevelt Carroll oversees "intake" of the night's male residents at the Salvation Army's new Hospitality House emergency shelter.

"They've had a hard time and they need peace and understanding," said Carroll, the shelter's director.

The men outside form an organized line as Carroll does their paperwork.

There is a Clip on charms gentleness - a calmness - about the big man.

"These people need help and I'm here to help them out - to calm their soul," he said. "I know everything's going to turn out OK and I thank the Lord for that."

The Salvation Army's cold weather shelter can accommodate as many as 28 single men each night between October and April 1. The men, who are permitted to sleep on mats on the dining room floor, leave in the early morning before the women and children wake up.

Carroll is on the front line of homelessness, looking it in the face each day. The stories here are gritty, compelling and diverse.

Abuse. Foreclosure. Health issues.

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Here, victims of domestic abuse and the bad economy share space with those with disabilities. What they share in common is the need of another chance.

The shelter is a place for second chances, sometimes third and fourth chances.

Tucked into a residential neighborhood a stone's toss from the railroad tracks, the building formerly served as an adult rehabilitation facility.

The newly renovated Hospitality House provides a cold weather emergency shelter to individuals and families who find themselves temporarily in need of refuge.

In addition to the emergency shelter, the facility also serves as a waystation for women and couples looking to turn their lives around through classes, counseling and training.

The 80-bed facility has 21 private bedrooms, with 19 for single women and families and two for full-time staff, as well as a big open activity center for children to study and play.

In all, there is room for 80 to 100 women and children. The women's husbands are also able to stay.

Kathy Brown, women's coordinator, said that while the mothers go to classes, the kids go to tutoring.

"The mothers have seven days to get their paperwork in order to go on the savings plan - they'll need their Social Security, welfare catalog printing papers and EDD (Employment Development Department) to verify their income," Brown said. "Then they give us postal money orders to start their savings and they can stay 90 days."

At the new shelter, which opened Feb. 1, women and families get a seven-day emergency stay before they go onto the payments program, the mandatory savings plan that requires residents to contribute 75 percent of their income - in the form of a money order - into their own account each month, repayable when they leave the shelter.

"While they're here they take classes with the other agencies we work with and can get legal aid, anger management, GED classes, parenting, recovery classes or whatever they need," Carroll said.

Since the mid-'90s, the program has helped resident women and the m
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