Last fall, Gaile Herling predicted that an ad hoc overflow shelter project could end up helping "hundreds" of people survive cold winter nights in Santa Fe. Churches around Santa Fe opened their doors on a regular, alternating basis to provide shelter, suppers, showers, laundry facilities and breakfasts to a total of 390 people over the winter, including 45 women and children, according to coalition administrator Deborah Tang.
This week, the temporary program ended as nighttime temperatures began rising, and a push began for a permanent answer to homelessness.
"It was a long, cold winter. You guys undoubtedly saved lives," Mayor David Coss told a gathering of the Interfaith Coalition at First Presbyterian Church on Wednesday. "Mayors don't always sleep well at night, worrying about snow and water lines and whether the crews are ready. I was particularly hoping, as I lay awake, that I wouldn't be going to another memorial service at St. Elizabeth's for someone else who'd died of exposure. Your effort helped us avoid that."
Nine churches and one synagogue eventually joined the project as active participants, providing shelter on weeknights for one to two-week stints while the Center for Spiritual Living anchored weekends. The program was run by volunteers who had been trained, and St. Elizabeth Shelter handled the overall administration.
Volunteers went beyond handing out soup and towels. Some guests were personally helped to find jobs, obtain services and even locate permanent housing. One volunteer took an injured woman home when the woman had nowhere else to convalesce after surgery.
"I have never had a better experience with a house guest," Carolyn Vail, now the coalition's volunteer coordinator, said. "She helps with folding laundry and making lunch when she can."
The congratulatory tone of the winter's-end "appreciation celebration" potluck only lasted briefly. The real push, as participants told the Journal, is for a year-round, permanent shelter and "one-stop shopping" help point for homeless people in Santa Fe.
"We don't really have a homeless shelter in Santa Fe," the Rev. Bethany Carpenter, pastor of Zia United Methodist Church, said. "The Salvation Army is not a shelter at all and doesn't claim to be; they take in men who have no place else from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Life Link and St. E's are really transitional housing. St. E's can handle 22 men, six women and one family— and they can stay for a month, so where do the next night's people go?"
One reason the coalition changed its name from "Overflow Shelter" to "Shelter for All" was a coalition member's terse observation: "There's no overflow if there's no shelter," said the Rev. Ray Masterson, a coordinator with the Homeless Advocacy Project of the New Mexico Coalition for the Homeless.
"We knew this would not be a permanent solution, but we had to do something 'right now.' It was cold, it was snowing, and the women were always tired and hungry," Carpenter said. "The faith communities made it work, bless them all. Now what we need is a permanent, year-round space for everyone to be able to get off the streets and out of the elements."
The coalition's immediate push is to have a permanent building by the time winter rolls around again in six months. "What we envision is a building that could house representatives of all the agencies that serve these clientele, where they could get help with employment and health issues and food and education and housing during the day— and that would serve as a homeless shelter at night." Herling said.
The coalition, which got a $10,000 matching grant from the city to bankroll its $37,500 budget for the 2007-08 winter project, is lobbying city government for help with the permanent facility. Coss said he is sympathetic.
"This coalition is part of a workable solution to the problem of homelessness in Santa Fe," the mayor said. "It is not the whole solution. The Mayor's Task Force to End Homelessness has made its report, and the task force took a housing-first approach— creating more subsidized and affordable housing. But shelter is always an immediate need."
Coss urged coalition members to support a transfer-tax bill he and Councilor Rebecca Wurzberger plan to introduce April 30. Revenues from the tax on real estate sales would go into a city Affordable Housing Trust Fund, he said.
"Everything in Santa Fe gets done by volunteer efforts, it gets done by involvement and it gets done by politics," Coss said. "We can fix problems. We can be a national model. I appreciate the faith communities and how they have stepped forward to work with us."
While it lobbies the city and state for financial help, Carpenter said, the coalition is working on several fronts to have a permanent shelter by October. She said the group has looked at the building that housed the former White Swan Laundry on Cerrillos Road. The building is large enough and central enough to work, but has no insulation, Carpenter said. She and others are working with Habitat for Humanity to see if they can get insulation through them. Other volunteers are pursuing fundraising ideas.
Shelter meetings
The Interfaith Coalition for Shelter for all has scheduled two "long-term vision" meetings in the next few weeks:
3:15-4:30 p.m. Wednesday
3:15-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 7
Both meetings will be at the B.F. Young Building, 1300 Camino Sierra Vista. Call Gaile Herling, 467-2571, for more information
