Sean C. Morgan
Sweet Home’s warming shelter will be open as early as Sunday evening, Dec. 15, to provide a warm place to sleep during freezing weather this winter.
Volunteers opened a warming shelter, hosted by Fir Lawn Lutheran Church, in February just before the snow storm last winter. Organizer Janet McInerney said it consistently had about six people sleeping overnight, with a few other individuals staying a couple of nights.
“We’ve identified many more people than that,” McInerney said. “We’re hoping this year we’ll have a lot more.”
A number of factors determine whether homeless people use the shelter, she said. The shelter doesn’t accept dogs or grocery carts, which must remain outside. The shelter also maintains a policy of lights out at 11 p.m., and no one is allowed back in after 11 a.m.
“That’s because we don’t want anyone to disrupt restorative sleep,” McInerney said.
Clients are awakened at 6 a.m., and they have until 7 a.m. to eat a light breakfast and leave.
Since last year, the volunteers have formed a governing board, with funding managed by Sweet Home Emergency Ministries. Board members are: Jon Arnold; Corky Crain; Kelly Letho, McInerney; Joe Medley, pastor of Fir Lawn and Sweet Home United Methodist churches; Heather Wright; and Church of the Nazarene Pastor Bethani Young.
The shelter also has moved to the Sweet Home Church of the Nazarene, across Highway 228 from Thriftway. McInerney said it was difficult for some homeless to get up the hill to Fir Lawn and she expects the new shelter location will draw more use this year.
The group obtained a $2,300 grant from the Community Services Consortium to pay for supplies, she said. “We’ve changed over from just having blankets to having sleeping bags.”
At the end of the season, those using the shelter will be able to take the sleeping bags with them, she said.
The shelter is mostly ready to go, McInerney said. “There’s little things at this point.”
“If the community wants to donate to the warming shelter, they can do it through SHEM,” Young said. Donations are tax-deductible that way.
The warming shelter has about 20 volunteers, said board member and volunteer Crain. Some people will work several nights, but more people would make scheduling easier and provide backup when something comes up for volunteers.
For example, Crain said, she has one volunteer heading to England for two weeks and another who will have surgery during the winter.
McInerney has held two group training sessions, she said, and on the first night a volunteer works, a board member will be on hand to run him or her through training. The organization has a manual that goes into depth on a variety of issues.
Each night, four volunteers staff the shelter, with one pair working from 9 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. and another pair working from 2:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.
Each team can call a supervisor, a member of the board, if necessary, and if there is a serious situation, the board members will go to the shelter.
The shelter had no issues, no arguments or fights, last year, McInerney said, although volunteer staff did have to evict someone from the property once.
If there is an issue, with the training volunteers will know what to do about it, she said.
“You have to have a plan,” Young said, noting that there is an automated external defibrillator on site, with instructions.
Overall, the shelter is better organized this year, McInerney said. Last year, it went from idea to execution in just three days, on Feb. 16.
“This year, we had a longer time to get things set up,” she said, but it’s still a learning experience.
The warming shelter opens if the temperature is predicted to reach a low of 32 degrees or less during the night, McInerney said. Two board members do a daily check with several weather services to decide whether it will open.
If they decide the shelter will open, board members get a hold of more than 20 businesses that have agreed to post yellow signs announcing “Warming Shelter is Open Tonight.”
Crain also posts the information on Sweet Home Facebook pages, One Shelter, Community Watch and news and events and then calls the volunteers scheduled for that night.
“It’s a far better system than what we had,” Crain said.
For more information or to get involved, contact Crain at (909) 615-6727.