St. Francis Center exists for people like 53-year-old Tom Albe, a thoughtful man with pulled-back gray hair and a long beard.

After being laid off from a job in commercial building maintenance, he turned to friends and family for help. Family moved away, and so did the help.

He's been homeless the past two years, sleeping on mats in crowded shelters. But during the day he's got a safe, warm place to check mail, take a hot shower, eat a healthy meal, store his stuff and use a phone.

Those are among the services at St. Francis Center, 2323 Curtis St. The center also has mental health counselors and social workers on staff.

Executive Director Tom Luehrs says up to 700 people come to St. Francis every day. In this interview, Luehrs talks about how the center began and the needs it fills. The center has applied for Season to Share funding.

How did your agency get started?

In 1983, (around) the time when the word homeless first appeared in print. It coincided with the rise of a new class of people who we were identifying in our country. It wasn't just single people, it was families as well.

We saw a need at the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. Their headquarters is maybe a half- mile or so from here. There were a lot of people showing up at the diocese, and they were basically people who were very vulnerable, disabled in one way or another, and looking for help. There were some overnight shelters, but there was no place to go during the day.

Can you talk about a case in which your agency really made a difference?

When we opened our housing program six years ago this man who had been coming here every day got in. He was a veteran. We offered reading and math classes to people in the program. He didn't know how to read. Here's a guy who's in his 40s, had been in the service, ended up on the streets and was able to hide all these years. He started to read and really enjoy it. He read a lot about the Broncos, then started reading some literature and eventually enrolled at (Metropolitan State College of Denver). He eventually moved out of our housing and lived independently.

How have your clients changed in the past few years?

We've seen more elderly people. We've seen more women who are battered. We've seen more youth. Across those areas, there are a lot more people with more severe mental health issues. These are people who would have in the past received treatment. When funding was cut at the state level a couple years ago, a lot of those people weren't able to keep their housing and their services.

What are St. Francis Center's main goals?

We try to offer a range of services that we think will end people's experience of homelessness and put them back into the flow of the rest of the community. One of the main goals is to get people into housing. If there's stability and you have a place to go home to, it's easier to go to work. One of the projects we're undertaking is this building right next door. We're doing major construction and building 50 new subsidized apartments.

What's the biggest need among the people you serve?

Everybody who comes in here needs to be recognized, to be noticed, to be in a relationship, to be with somebody else. People who come here don't think their world is going to change because they stepped inside the door. One thing they do know is people here care about them.

How are current economic conditions affecting your clientele?

People have less money these days or their money doesn't go as far as it did three or five years ago.

St. Francis Center

* Mission: To reveal God's love for humanity by providing a safe place for people who are homeless in metro Denver; to meet their basic needs for day-to-day survival while offering them assistance to transition out of homelessness.

* Founded: 1983

* People helped: 500 to 700 people daily

* Staff: 38

* Volunteers: 120

* Budget: $1.7 million

* Web site: sfcdenver.org