Thanks to Grace Episcopal Church for opening their doors, Karen Andro from First United Methodist Church for coordinating volunteers and Bethel Lutheran Church for helping staff the day. Z! (and board members) from Shine was there most of the day as well.
Father Jonathan blogged about how social media brought them all together. At the last minute again. County staff failed to realize that they had a gap in the system, and when we told them, failed to do anything about it. Word was very slow to get out (Friday at 3:30 as agencies were closing for the day). 122 people signed in, more came through the doors. Over 20 people volunteered to help staff the front desk, serve food, make coffee, do dishes, clean up, etc. I was shocked by how many people were asking me about Tenant Resource Center/Housing Help Desk information about looking for housing and various program and affordable housing developments. I thought that the agencies serving these folks informed people who are homeless about how to find housing – and I thought we made it easy by putting it all on the internet for them. I guess not. They also had lots of questions about the tiny houses. The day went well, but I was sad as I was leaving I ran into a guy I know who I hadn’t seen during the day, I asked him where he was, he said he didn’t know Grace was open and he spent the day wandering around trying to stay warm. 🙁 And then helped drop off an very drunk man to sleep on a grate for the evening. Bad solution. No better options. The rest of the day was perfect tho! Thanks to everyone who made it happen!
Here’s the photo album from the day.
