In the Community.

[Gregory Matthews]

The Boulder Colorado congregation is looking for ways to perform valuable services to the surrounding community.   Boulder has a  large number of homeless people.  The community has taken an interest in those people and as a result erected a new, modern homeless shelter that provides housing, meals and social services to the homeless.  [NOTE:  You can Google "Boulder Homeless Shelter" to learn more about this place.]  

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Boulder Congregation is serving meals to the homeless, at that shelter, on a periodic basis.  On a recent night where I participated in serving, meals were served to more than 180 people.

 

Well, on some evenings, that shelter has a greater need for housing that  it has the ability to supply.  To handle this overflow need, the SDA congregation has agreed, along with other six other   Boulder churches, to provide housing of the homeless one evening a week.  It has agreed to take Sundays.  This housing is a recent decision, due in part to the fact that it is only recently that the evening temperatures have  cold enough to require housing for an overflow group.

 

On the first Sunday evening, that the   Boulder congregation provided this, it was   very cold and 160 people were transported to the church for housing.  Last Sunday evening it was much warmer and only 38 people were so transported to the church.

 

To set the requirements in perspective:

1) The Boulder agency transports the needy people to the church;.

2)  It provides a simple mat for the people to lie on which is placed on the floor of the church.

3) It also provides bedding of some kind.

4) It stations a person at the church to monitor the activities of the homeless that are spending the night and to provide security for property and people who are bedded   together in one large room.

5) The next morning the bedding and people are removed.

6)  The agency is also supposed to provide some cleanup of the church.  However, as this is performed by the homeless who have spent the night, this has not been sufficient and the congregation has had to do additional cleanup the next day.