A group of men arrived at the old International Paper building early Thursday night, all of their belongings either strapped to their backs or by their feet. As they waited for warm food and shelter, they shared stories about their day, mutual acquaintances and where they’ll go when the Eastside Winter Shelter closes at the end of April.

“It gives us warm meals and a place to stay,” said Brian Jones, who bikes to the winter shelter from Redmond. He’s been in and out of the Congregation for the Homelessness’ shelter program for about seven years.

The city began operating a severe weather shelter in 2007 — after a homeless man died from exposure Christmas night — later expanding the program to all winter. The city leases space at the International Paper building from owner Sound Transit, which plans to use the site for an operations and maintenance facility in the future. CFH is the sublessee.

The shelter opened on Nov. 18 this year and was slated to close at the end of March. The United Way provided funding to help keep the shelter open through April, said David Johns Bowling, CFH deputy executive director.

There have been about 400 guests at the shelter this year, some managing to find other shelter and housing programs.

“There’s still a majority of people who will need shelter when it closes down,” Bowling said.

That’s when CFH and A Regional Coalition for Housing will step up efforts to find a permanent building to serve as a year-round shelter for homeless men.

“Where it would go and exactly how it’s designed and everything like that would start happening in the next several months,” said Arthur Sullivan, ARCH program manager.

“The ‘Not in my backyard,’ definitely you hear that all the time,” Bowling said, adding CFH will launch a capital campaign later this year. “Siting is going to be a very crucial step for us.”

CFH does operate a year-round shelter program through a rotation of Eastside churches providing overnight stays for homeless Eastside men.

“They’re pretty much always at capacity, as far as I can tell,” said Jermaine Berkley, who stayed at the winter shelter last year and was later able to move into the year-round program, get a job and find a place of his own.

Berkley said he recently lost his job as a cook and had to come back to the shelter. He’s also in his third quarter at Bellevue College where, through several grants, he’s studying web development.

“It’s not about the building,” Berkley said, when asked what he thought of CFH’s goal of buying its own shelter facility. “It’s about what’s inside the building.”

A year-round shelter would offer a place to clean and change his clothes, gain job and housing training, receive medical and dental services, take a shower and net one-on-one case management, Berkley said.

Jones said he is entering the year-round program with CFH when the winter shelter closes. He said the difference is he can get more case management there, which is what many like him need.

“There’s a lot of homeless men out there that need assistance,” he said.

“It can be a hub for a lot of different services,” said Dwight Jackson, deputy director of shelter services for CFH. “Being able to have a place like that where we can house all those services is really something that’s going to be good. I look forward to having something like that for the guys.”

As the winter shelter nears closure, homeless men using it become anxious about where they’ll wind up next, Jackson said. With only CFH’s year-round shelter operating on the Eastside, men may be forced to seek options in Seattle, he said.

“It’s heartbreaking to have to close the door on them,” said Michael, a shelter volunteer.

The winter shelter averages 80 homeless each night, said Michael, who spent the first part of Thursday night leading the charge for dinner service, provided by volunteers working in an on-site kitchen. Volunteers in the adjacent dining hall kept busy serving full tables.

The winter shelter provides a number of supplies to its guests — the Puget Sound weather taking its toll — passing out more than 5,000 pairs of socks this year, Michael said.

“They’re here because they need to be here.”

— Congregations for the Homeless will hold its sixth annual “The Face of Homelessness” luncheon 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 30 at Bellevue Presbyterian Church, 1717 Bellevue Way N.E. It’s a no-cost luncheon, but CFH hopes to raise $125,000 for funding its programs. The keynote speaker will be Rex Hohlbein, executive director of Facing Homelessness in Seattle.