Central Iowa Shelter & Services

Donate

Donation Policy Change

All clothing donations MUST be by appointment for the foreseeable future. Please contact Melissa G at 515-564-5752 to schedule a time for donation drop-off. We're sorry for any inconvenience!
The Other Side

"I always lived in Iowa. I spent much of my childhood moving around with my mom, 2 sisters and 6 brothers. We mostly lived around the Des Moines area, so I’m familiar with everything around here..."

Read His Story
New Staff Alert!

Meet Bailey Brown, one of our new Shelter Advocates. She works at our front desk, assisting and directing people who come in. Whether it be getting people to the right case workers, informing them on our services and directing them to resources. Bailey only recently graduated from high school, having grown up in Perry, IA. After working here for 3 weeks, Bailey would describe CISS in one word as "chaotic", with so many things going on. However, she does loves the chaos, because it means getting people to the help they need. The coolest moment she's experienced is being able to see our residents move from the shelter to their own independent housing in the community. In her free time, Bailey loves to hike and if she could do anything in the world it would be to get a van and travel. Her spirit animal is a Llama, coinciding with her gentle nature. Her favorite quote is, "Perhaps you were born for such a time as this".

Our Impact This Year

Number of People Served This Year

2,323
Volunteer Hours This Year

18,664
Lbs harvested from Mulberry Farms & Food This Year

10,228

News & Events

January 6, 2021

Des Moines shelter ramps up help, creates new program to assist the homeless

DES MOINES, Iowa — In 2020, many Iowans faced uncertainty about keeping a roof over their heads due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Central Iowa Shelter & Services in Des Moines helped many out who were facing homelessness, or just became homeless, by finding them places to live.

To make sure the shelter did not become a virus hotspot, officials started moving some occupants into public or private housing.

December 30, 2020

Organization says number of homeless in need of shelter is down in DSM

About 130 people are in the Central Iowa Shelter and Services Center downtown right now. Normally this time of year that number is around 200.

December 24, 2020

Christmas cold snap brings concerns for the homeless population

"There is a big risk of people getting frostbite so we also welcome them to come in and get a coat or anything from our clothing closet," said Mellissa Gradischnig, with Central Iowa Shelter and Services.

View the Archives

Polk County

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Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.
Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
Website Use Information Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.
How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us? Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.
What Are Cookies? Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.
How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies? We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.
Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.
What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
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