Homeless Winter Update

Homeless Winter Up-Date           Feb. 2019
 
Rain and snow and below freezing weather. Got the picture??? Placerville is isolated with snow. AGAIN

We have 110 persons completely signed up to use what shelters the Nomadic Shelters can provide as of 02/09/2019. Foothills UMC stayed open for an additional night last Tuesday due to the snow and impassable roads. Other churches are welcome to join us. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are open and our homeless are wet and freezing. Discovery Hills Church opened their doors just in time last week. That congregation wanted to provide warmth in a shelter as well as compassion to “the least of these my brethren/sisters, (as) ye have done it unto me.”
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JSS has 140+ tents and bags in our homeless community doing what a tent and a moderate sleeping bag can do in this freezing weather. JSS is giving out ponchos for the rain days at shelter locations, but none of that can protect or sisters and brothers like a shelter in a building that has some heat. I was blown away by a comment I heard two days ago. “They aren’t my brother of sister; my family takes care of themselves.” Then, “they should take care of themselves.” I wonder how well he sleeps in his church on Sunday?

JSS has a new schedule as follows. Tuesdays and Thursdays our people will be giving out socks, toilet paper, hygiene pads, underwear, razors, tooth brushes and tooth paste, batteries, ponchos, “wipes,” the basics, the necessities. On Wednesdays they will be giving out the necessary clothing, practical, clean, and able to withstand the riggers of Homelessness. Many people do not understand, or, remember that the homeless person does not have a place to store anything. They must carry everything they own with them. Think about it. Try it. Then they must discard what is not immediately necessary.
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What can we, you/me, do for a person, elderly, released from the hospital, in a wheelchair, having been offered a lot of help through the “Military Family Support Group” with many persons involved in his case, out in the wet cold weather, yet refusing their collective help to help him out? What would you do? That, or similar, is what the shelter volunteers must address every night. MY highest Praise for the volunteers!