COEUR d'ALENE - Think of it more as a living room downtown for people who need one, and less a soup kitchen for the homeless crowd.

The 2nd Street Commons has quietly been operating as just a warm place where homeless people can get away from the cold weather, get a hot lunch, a cup of coffee - but also maybe get a lead on a job and attend a peer support meeting.

Those who run the place fear there could be an increase in visitors after the homeless people living in camps in the woods behind Target were told to move. Meanwhile, 2nd Street is already hurting for food and money to meet the needs of those already relying on it.

The Commons, opened in January and located at 405 N. Second St., is open every day but Saturday, from 1 to 5 p.m. Lunch is served from 2 to 4 p.m. And on Mondays and Fridays, 2nd Street hosts movie nights with popcorn.

But those who come to 2nd Street aren't sitting around watching the boob tube.

"We want them out looking for work, going to school or something other than just sitting here," said Brad Philpott, a volunteer who works to acquire food and resources to operate the place.

Philpott said between 45 and 70 meals are provided each day, depending on the time of the month and whether people have used up their food stamps.

"Some people come in for a few weeks and travel on, some people have been here since January," Philpott said. "Some people do get jobs and they get placed into housing."

He said organizers of 2nd Street are looking to acquire some laptops they can make available to the homeless visitors to help them apply for jobs online.

"We don't want to be the place where they just come in, eat, and leave," Philpott said. "We want to go beyond that," helping people improve their lives.

At the start of Tuesday's "family meeting," prior to lunch, Philpott offered several leads on jobs in the area.

"If they need a ride we'll try and arrange a ride," he said.

Ricky St. Martin, originally from Arlington, Wash., has been coming to 2nd Street since it opened in January, and the people there have become like family to him.

He said the place helped bridge him from homelessness and serving probation to staying at a halfway house and attending North Idaho College.

"What really helped me is that it made me feel comfortable," said St. Martin, 37, who has a done time in prison and was a heroin addict.

He started at NIC while he was still homeless, and did his homework and stored his books at 2nd Street. He hopes to eventually complete a degree in business.

Coming regularly to 2nd Street for lunch and group meetings when he was down on his luck gave him a sense of a routine. He still comes to 2nd Street for lunch because he can't afford that meal each day.

"It brought me hope," he said. "That's what this place gives more than anything is to have hope - and to a lot of guys out there who don't have it."

Gar Mickelson, who started 2nd Street, said it costs about $2,000 per month to keep the doors open, and private donors do the heavy lifting. The Commons occupies 3,400 square feet of rented floor space.

Along with a kitchen, dining room and food storage area, 2nd Street has a job resources room, recreation room and the living room.

The Commons is part of Kaleidoscope Community Services, a Christian organization. The Commons was modeled after various community spaces around the Northwest like Aurora Commons and Mosaic Community Coffee House, both in Seattle.

Mickelson said they know of approximately 70 people currently who are sleeping outside on any given night.

"If they're lucky they can find somebody's couch, but most of these people have just run out of resources and so they don't have a place to go to get started rebuilding," Mickelson said.

The Commons relies on a lot of volunteer help.

"We've had over 120 volunteers from 12 different churches in 10 months," Mickelson said. "They do all kinds of stuff."

Philpott, one of those volunteers, is a recovering alcoholic who did a little time in the county jail.

"I came down here and I think God said 'this is where you need to be right now in your life,'" he said. "It's good for me. It's constant therapy, it's constant reminders."

Having had that experience, he has been able to relate to the struggles of those who come to 2nd Street, though he has never been homeless.

"I am kind of one of them," he said.

More information: www.kaleidoscopecs.org.