News

Warming shelters strain: rising demand for service and not enough volunteers

By JEFF EPSTEIN
[email protected]
SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — Every winter, several churches around the state set up shelters so that persons with no available housing can get out of the cold. Many of these shelters are funded with state grants for a season that lasts from mid-November to mid-April.

The Springfield Warming Shelter located at the North Springfield Baptist Church is one of them, and has been closed for the season since April 15. Now comes the work of looking back over the season and coming to terms with how resources matched up with needs.

Unfortunately, Site Manager Kathy Mason said, there is more demand for both beds and volunteers than there is supply.

“We had more [guests] than we could house at the beginning of the season, then it calmed down,” she said. It was unusual to be so busy in November, but winter came a bit early. The Springfield Warming Shelter has eight beds, and on average 3.6 are filled per night. Ten percent of the time, all eight beds are in use, Mason said. That’s up from 6 percent the previous year.

Why so busy? This is the shelter’s sixth year of operation, so more people know about it, she said. Also, some other shelters in the area had trouble staffing at beginning of season and opened late. People generally call 2-1-1 to find shelters, and the need is in both New Hampshire and Vermont.

One night, Mason said, the Claremont shelter was over capacity and she was able to help. In another case, Springfield was over capacity but Mason and her assistant manager Angel were able to find two beds at the Greater Falls shelter in North Walpole.

Mason believes the uptick this season was due to a “lack of affordable housing.” While the shelter does not ask a lot of questions of its incoming guests, she said, she does know that guests are often employed, but cannot get a room or apartment because they cannot afford the security deposit on top of  the first month’s rent.

“We work closely with supportive housing,” such as SEVCA, to hook people up with housing opportunities and other social service needs, said Mason. Clients are also referred to a network of local and state agencies for assistance.

A variety of people use the shelter, and all persons coming in for the first time have to go through an intake procedure in which a shelter volunteer will explain the rules of the facility they must agree to  (no drug use, no smoking, respect the space, etc.) An evening meal is usually provided, courtesy of donations from the community.

Maintaining the shelter requires much work and staffing. 

“To be at optimum level, we need 120 volunteers” but what they actually have is around 75, she said. The shelter is open between 6:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., and the shift from 12:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. which involves security and the enforcement of shelter rules, is the most critical time, Mason said.

Dennis, one of the volunteers, shows a visitor the separate men’s and women’s bedrooms, and the office where security cameras discreetly monitor the building perimeter.

While some shelters offer pay for their workers, Springfield does not. Luckily, it gets volunteers in their 20s up to age 70 and beyond through other churches as well as its own.

“We get huge support from community churches,” Mason said, adding that its active Facebook presence (www.facebook.com/springfieldwarmingshelter) is a source of volunteers, as is the recovery community. People who have gone through alcohol, drug, or other recovery want to help the shelter that at one time helped them, she said.

But there are never enough volunteers, and now the problem is compounded as the shelter managers and trustees look ahead to next season. It seems that Angel, the assistant manager, is moving on and must be replaced by October. The shelter’s Facebook page has posted a request for applications for that position, as well as seeking volunteers.

Volunteers receive an orientation, usually scheduled for Oct. 15 and 22 (volunteers only need to attend one session) from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. 

On a national basis, homelessness is often seen as an urban issue, but many rural counties have needs as well. In Vermont, the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness maintains a resource for towns and community shelters like Springfield’s, called the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).

The Institute for Community Alliances (ICA) compiled data from 2017, the most recent year available. Its report shows that 4,407 homeless clients across the state received services and shelter that year. Agencies tracked by HMIS provided 2,239 clients with emergency shelter — but only 54 percent of all beds were in the system in 2017. 

Update: this article has been updated to correct the misspelling of the author’s name, made by the author. Stuff happens.

Avatar photo

As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.