LAKEPORT, Calif. – With the deepest, coldest nights of winter on their way, the Lake Ministerial Association is preparing to open a warming center to give the county’s homeless a respite from the elements, and it’s seeking the community’s help to fund the effort.
The association and a dedicated cadre of volunteers will open the warming center for the third winter in a row on Dec. 4. It will remain open until March 30.
Services will include a warm and secure place to sleep overnight, dinner and breakfast, hot showers, laundry assistance, plus help with obtaining identification, computer and WiFi access for job training and housing searches, and family reunification mediation, the association reported.
The Dec. 4 opening is three weeks earlier than its opening last year – which came on Christmas Eve – and nearly a month ahead of its first year’s opening at the end of December 2015.
The goal, said Jacqueline Maxman – who along with husband Nathan have been stalwart volunteers since the center’s inception – is to get ahead of the cold December nights. In the previous two years, the winter’s coldest nights had occurred in the weeks before the center opened.
To offer community members more details on its plan for the warming center, the Lake Ministerial Association held a Monday night meeting at the Lakeport Seventh-day Adventist Church at 1111 Park Way.
The church will once again house the warming center. Earlier this year, the church ran the warming center and a shelter for flood victims side by side.
Tina Scott, who represents District 4 on the Board of Supervisors, helped open the Monday meeting, which saw about 12 people in attendance – several of them volunteers with a few curious community members and a representative from the city of Lakeport among them.
“I’m here because I support the warming center and I was a volunteer,” said Scott, whose district also encompasses the warming center location.
A “point-in-time” count found that Lake County has 401 homeless individuals, Scott said.
The warming center – which this year was required to get a major use permit from the county – can only house 24 people per night. While Scott said that’s only a fraction of those in need, it’s still an important effort.
Seth Cantu, a church member and one of the earliest volunteers, explained how the warming center intake process will work.
The process, refined over the previous two years of operation, will include center clients arriving at the bus stop at the old Natural High School, located in the 800 block of N. Main Street across from St. Mary’s Catholic Church, in the city of Lakeport, he said.
There, the intake process begins. It continues when they arrive at the center – via a Lake Transit Authority bus – and fill out agreement forms, he said. All clients must arrive by 8 p.m.
Building relationships with clients is key, Cantu said. The trust that’s been built up between those who use the center and its volunteers led to families with children coming to use the center last year.
The center will continue to operate Mondays through Fridays – hours are 6 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. – and will have two two security officers, he said.
Cantu said the center is animal-friendly, with crates provided and two outdoor dog runs also available.
Jacqueline Maxman said the center requires 10 volunteers and a team leader to cover the overnight shifts.
She said those 10 volunteer positions break down as follows: two to cover the bus stop, two to work on intake at the center, two to assist with showers (one male, one female), two to serve and clean up after dinner, and two sleepers – also one male and female – to be present overnight.
Separately, a few volunteers are needed to arrive early in the morning to serve breakfast and help close the center by 7 a.m.
Maxman said they are using a digital platform – Signup Genius – to take volunteer signups. Signups for the months of December and January are now live.
So far, she said many nights are filling up through the efforts of church and community groups and individuals. Nights where they need help are Mondays and Tuesdays.
One of the key concerns for the center this year is funding.
Maxman said it’s projected to cost $44,000 to run the center this year. That amount covers paid staff, taxes and fees for staff, transportation and payments to the church to cover utility costs.
“At this point in time we are not well-funded,” Maxman said.
Pastor Shannon Kimbell-Auth, whose leadership helped launch the center in 2015, said center organizers want it to be 25-percent funded by the middle of November in order to open next month.
Based on verbal commitments and past donation amounts, she estimated that they have about $8,000 toward that goal. They are hoping to get $12,000 by the middle of this month.
In a connected effort, Clear Lake High School student Quintin Scott is holding a sleeping bag and pillow drive to benefit Lake County’s homeless.
For his senior project, Scott is aiming to collect and donate 100 new or gently used pillows and sleeping bags to the homeless, whose numbers he fears have grown because of the wildland fires.
To donate to Scott’s efforts, call him at 707-245-6280.
This year, the Kelseyville United Methodist Church is the warming center’s fiscal sponsor.
Donations can be mailed for the center to the Kelseyville United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 446, Kelseyville, CA 95451, with “Warming Center” in the memo line.
To sign up to volunteer, go to www.signupgenius.com and search for This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Homeless warming center prepares to open; organizers seek funding to help those in need
- Elizabeth Larson
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