The house generosity built
Sometimes, it really does take a village.
Your generosity means that no one needs to huddle against the
winter’s chill.
The house generosity built
Sometimes, it really does take a village.
Your generosity means that no one needs to huddle against the winter’s chill.
The San Benito County Homeless Shelter opened for the winter just before Thanksgiving $20,000 short of the funds needed to keep it open until through March 15, when it was scheduled to close.
There was talk of having to shut down services a month earlier than normal when temperatures continue to dip low enough for overnight frosts.
The local Homeless Task Force, through the Pinnacle, asked you to fill the gap. And you did. Only hours before the longest night of the year Dec. 21, donations crossed the $20,000 mark, and the shelter’s role in housing the least fortunate among us is guaranteed for the year.
It’s easy to justify turning our backs on the issue of homelessness. Many of the people there arrived as the result of a series of bad decisions. Many more are just victims of bad luck.
But does that justify leaving anyone out in the cold?
It can now be said that you think not. Your contributions are the loudest vote of confidence the shelter could ever receive.
The Pinnacle recently related the story of three former shelter residents who used the opportunity afforded by the shelter to put their lives back in order and to move into their own housing as productive members of the community.
Through a series of advertisements in this newspaper, local business leaders pledged matching funds for donations to the cause. Their generosity was met by the generosity of citizens throughout the community.
While the shelter’s operation is assured this year, there are no guarantees that future needs will be met. Since the shelter opened in 2005, the need for housing the homeless has been amply demonstrated. A reliable source of funding must be a priority for the shelter’s future.
Now the challenge is to get to the point where the shelter services are available year-round and where families will be able to find transitional living space while they put their lives back together. One of the biggest goals of the shelter is not to serve as a permanent home for people, but to allow them a temporary home while they use the resources in the community to move out on their own. With a year-round shelter these opportunities would be there 12 months out of the year instead of four.
The crisis averted through the community’s generosity only underscores the need for a secure source of funds.
