After nearly three months of providing a hot meal and a warm
place to stay for the local homeless population, San Benito
County’s first winter homeless shelter will close this week until
next November.
Hollister – After nearly three months of providing a hot meal and a warm place to stay for the local homeless population, San Benito County’s first winter homeless shelter will close this week until next November.
The shelter, which will close its doors Wednesday, opened in December after nearly a year of work by local government officials, businesses, religious groups and individual residents who collaborated to find the shelter’s Southside Road site and then get the facility built. Once the shelter was built, local churches and restaurants donated their kitchens for cooking meals, and area residents donated clothes, toiletries and other items.
Members of the San Benito County Homeless Task Force – the core group that pushed the shelter project forward – said that the shelter had a successful first season because it was a community effort.
“The whole thing is miraculous, just miraculous,” said Mary Zanger, a task force member. “We just gobbled up volunteers.”
Two years of operating costs for the shelter are covered by a $139,500 grant from the California Housing and Community Development Department.
About 15 people stayed at the shelter located on Southside Road each night, and approximately 75 people used it throughout the season, according to the members of the task force.
In addition to giving the homeless a place to weather the often chilling cold, the shelter offered dinners that were provided by many local churches, and myriad services, such as mental health, employment, medical and legal services. The shelter also had security and on-site supervision.
“It really was a community project,” said Hollister Councilman Doug Emerson, who is also a member of the task force.
As the task force worked through much of last year to get the shelter opened, it faced many obstacles – such as an uncooperative contractor and a lack of building materials, which were diverted to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. But none were insurmountable, task force members say, because of the dedication of local volunteers, church groups and residents.
“It couldn’t work without volunteers,” said San Benito County Supervisor Pat Loe, also a task force member. “It reflects so highly on the community.”
The shelter will open again next November, and the state grant received last year will cover operating expenses for one more winter. After the grant money runs out, the task force will need to find a new way to pay the bills.
Task force members, however, say that they are determined to keep the homeless shelter running each winter, and that they may even explore the possibility of building a permanent shelter nearer to town.
“There is such a need,” Zanger said. “Here we have human beings living on the streets, and that’s obscene.”
For more information about the Homeless Task Force, call Chairwoman Kathy Ruiz at 637-2258.
