This morning, My Green Lake reported that all neighborhood SHARE shelters would close on October 10, citing a widely-distributed email from SHARE. So, we contacted Pastor Jami Fecher over at Gift of Grace and he confirmed that he also received the same correspondence notifying him of the closures. He sent me a link to SHARE’s Google Group for direct access. Here’s the post:
Dear friends, hosts, allies and supporters:
SHARE’s money can go no further. The last night inside for the neighborhood indoor shelters is Sunday night, 10/9/11.
Please share this terrible news with all you can – your congregation on Sunday morning in both the bulletin and during the service, your email lists for anyone who may care, and your friends. Your support is needed now more than ever.
Attached are two fliers (FlierWHAD and FlierWHAD1). Please choose one and send it to your entire congregation or other alert list you have. When one is denied a fair chance at the basics of life – food, shelter and clothing – in a land of plenty such as ours, it is only fair and just to stand up peacefully and ask for better.
That – and staying together and safe – is what we will be doing Monday night. We hope you will join us. The more of us who stand up to be counted, the sooner we’ll get back inside.
Thank you for your ongoing friendship and support.
The SHARE shelter opened at Gift of Grace last September, sparking a bit of controversy between the church and its tenant, Huckleberry Forest preschool, as well as the neighbors in the vicinity.
One Night Count reports that during a given night in 2011, 1,753 people in Seattle were unsheltered. One of SHARE’s fliers (FlierWHAD) indicates that there are 500 people who use SHARE for shelter city-wide. It’s unclear at this point where they will go once the shelters close on Sunday.
We took SHARE and the church at their word that the shelter (which is about 100 feet from our house) would be a non-event as far as the safety and security of our neighborhood are concerned. They kept their word. I’m sorry the shelter is closing.
I think it was basically luck that the shelter went well, considering SHARE does not screen the homeless folks that they assign there very closely. A better attitude on SHARE’s part about this would garner more support from the neighborhoods they are in, beyond a collective shrug. They are “in but not of” the neighborhoods they where they have located shelters.
I doubt that it will close.
All GOG has to do is keep its doors open.
I have worked feeding the tent people for several years. Every one that I have spoken with has a very interesting life and a story on how they got there. They are not about to do anyone any harm,they want a job. My church also feeds the poor and homeless, give clothes and take care of their hands and feet.
I hope GOG stays open, an empty tummy does not make for a good day nor does sleeping under a bridge make for a good nights sleep.
I would like to invite everyone to come to Gift of Grace this Sunday to meet with me at 11:30AM for a thanksgiving GraceFeast meal and to talk about my experience with the Gift of Grace shelter.
the promised community meetings which were to held last year did NOT happen. Period.
There was info on the news source about a group which was planning to open one of the old aurora/99 motels as a homeless care site. If you wish to help, ge tthat going.
Why is this “terrible news?” The original agreement (if that’s what you want to call something that was thrust upon the neighborhood with no effort to seek feedback from the neighborhood until AFTER the decision was made) was that the shelter would be there for one year. Ding, time’s up!
But I’m sure there are plenty of goodhearted, concerned members of GoG who will happily open up their homes to those who are just “down on their luck,” right? Nah, so much easier to find a new, unsuspecting neighborhood to foist it on again.
Keep your eyes and ears open folks, and maybe next time we can provide input before it’s all said and done….
It’s not just GOG, it’s all 15 of their sites closing. How many more people will be out on the streets today?
well hay, I believe the original agreement was that after a year there would be a ‘community discussion’ about the future staying or not.
I have had many down and out people staying in my home, infact some of them when my children were younger. We taught them that “there but for the grace of God go them”. I just hope that if I ever get in that position where I have no food or place to sleep that the church doors are not shut in my face. My children have grown up helping others and not condemning them because they are less fortunate.
open the doors again…..