Doors at the PADS shelter will open to the homeless and the needy for the last time April 19 while task force members search for a new location.

Public Action to Deliver Shelter’s four-year-old operation, operated out of the house at 311 N. Fourth St., will end one month early because its lease at the building expires this month.

PADS currently has a capacity for 16 guests, but often serves more than 25, said PADS Administrative Aide Gayla Warford. Since its first season in 1986, more than 16,000 meals have been served to about 6,000 guests, she said.

A task force including DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow, other city officials and PADS volunteers has been unsuccessful so far in its search for a new location, Warford said. “We don’t have a place to go yet.”

Sparrow said the task force is looking for a building inside the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district for PADS. October is the goal set for finding a new location.

“We are very aware of the PADS situation,” Sparrow said. “It would be very difficult to provide the type of funding PADS needs if it were outside the TIF.”

Although staying in DeKalb would be easiest for the guests PADS serves, the new location could be outside the city, Warford said. “But hopefully it will be in DeKalb,” she said.

Because PADS‘ season usually ends in May, Warford said the schedule for the shelter will not be disrupted much by the early closing.

The shelter usually offers Sunday evening meals throughout the summer at the Newman Center and plans not to miss them this year, she said.

To help things out, the city and the Salvation Army will offer services to aid the homeless. “It’s not like we’re going to leave them homeless,” said 6th Ward Alderman Jamie Pennington.

Pennington said the city will continue its search for a new PADS site. “It would not surprise me if within the next year we saw a new site for that.”

The property on the 200 block of South First Street will not be used in conjunction with PADS, he said.