What To Do As Winter Comes To An End?

Each winter, in an effort to prevent the unnecessary death of any homeless man on the streets, the Emergency Winter Shelter and Urban Ministry Center's Room at the Inn open their doors to take in men who might otherwise remain on the streets. Uptown Shelter, already at capacity, expands its overflow capacity as well and, through this partnership, as many as 300-400 men are spared from the winter elements. Last night, Urban Ministry Center's program ended its winter schedule and the Emergency Winter Shelter will close at the end of April. The community is greatly appreciative of their efforts during the hardest months of the year. The question I'm getting now is what will Uptown Shelter do with all of these extra men seeking shelter? I wish I could say we have room for them all, but we don't. The unfortunate reality is that many men who found shelter, if only for a night, this winter will be without a place to stay this spring and summer.

In the midst of a sour economy, potential budget cuts, and increased demand, we have spent the last several weeks wrestling with what more we can effectively do. In September, Uptown Shelter increased its bed capacity to 238. In October we committed to 47 additional spaces during the winter months, affordable through the graciousness of the Critical Need Response Fund. In fact, we actually averaged about 77 additional spaces, often sheltering more than 300 per night. We wish we could continue this level of overflow and actually offer space to all who ask for it, but that costs money which we don't have and requires more space than our facility will accommodate. However, after much thought as to what we can afford to do and how many more men we can effectively shelter, we have a plan.

Uptown Shelter is adding 30 year round spaces to the 238 we already have, bringing our total capacity to 268. In cases of severe, life threatening weather, no matter what time of year, we will we expand that capacity to help prevent unnecessary deaths due to exposure to the elements.

We know this is not a perfect solution and that many homeless men will still go without shelter until the Emergency Winter Shelter and Room at the Inn start up again next winter. Yet, at the same time, we know that we are doing everything within our ability to meet the needs of homeless men in our community - after all helping homeless men is why Uptown Shelter exists.