Parish hosts homeless shelter in cold weather

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

St. Patrick Parish in Whitinsville started sheltering the homeless again this month – with an eye toward the Jubilee Year and the Last Judgement.

The Blackstone Valley Emergency Shelter, opened in 2017 in St. Patrick’s and three other churches, is using just the Catholic church’s parish center this winter, said Leslie Reichert, the shelter’s CEO.

Only guests with special circumstances are placed in the nearby hotel where the shelter housed all its guests during the coronavirus pandemic shutdown that forced churches to close, she said.

The shelter was re-opened at St. Patrick’s Jan. 3 this year, but no one came, said parishioner John Lapointe, a volunteer since the beginning. On Jan. 4 there were not enough volunteers to open up, he said. On Jan. 5 they had one guest, Jan. 6 two, Jan. 7-10 five, and Jan. 11 six - the same five men and a woman. The shelter was closed Jan. 12-14. It was to be open Jan. 15-17 and closed Jan. 18-19, so as to re-open in colder weather Jan. 20-25.

State limits allow temporary overnight shelters like this to be open for no more than seven consecutive days and 52 days per calendar year. So, Mr. Lapointe said, theirs opens when the “real feel temperature” (which includes the wind chill factor) is 24 degrees Fahrenheit or below, or if the forecast is for three or more inches of snow.

Two volunteers are needed for each shift, 8:45 p.m.-2 a.m. and 2 a.m.-7 a.m., to register guests, set up and take down cots, and be present. This timeframe enables the parish to use its facilities during the day and evening. Mr. Lapointe said St. Patrick’s can accommodate 27 guests in 11 classrooms, including men, women and families.

Mrs. Reichert praised Father Tomasz J. Borkowski, St. Patrick’s pastor. When asked about St. Patrick’s hosting the shelter daily, he agreed, explaining that that’s what Jesus would do, she said.

Father Borkowski said parishioners were thrilled, brought hats and gloves for the homeless and asked what else was needed.  

The parish is giving hope, which is especially good during this Jubilee Year of Hope, he said. He said they are following Jesus’ call to welcome the stranger, as recorded in the Last Judgment story in Matthew 25.

But the shelter guests are not strangers; Father Borkowski sees them at the parish’s free community breakfasts on Saturdays.

“They are really wonderful people,” he said. “They are very grateful we are doing things for them.”

At the parish center Friday, guests affirmed that.

Brendan Ellis said this is the first shelter he’s stayed at.

“I came here for breakfast about 2 and a half years ago,” he recalled. Knowing he was homeless, Mr. Lapointe told him about the shelter.

“John was incredible!” raved Jim Baldwin, a guest who also praised George Gannon, a shelter volunteer from St. Denis Parish in Douglas.

“They all are,” Mr. Ellis said. “But John really went the distance ... He’s always kept me in the loop with text messages. But he’s done more than that; he’s been a Christian, a Catholic. ... He’s a man of God.” Mr. Ellis said he himself has faith in God, and Mr. Lapointe renews that faith.

Faith factors into Mrs. Reichert’s story.

On a “super-cold” night in October 2016, watching her son play football, “I was one of those moms saying, ‘Hurry up and lose so I can go home,’” she said. Driving home in a warmed-up car, “I could see the outline of a lady in the gazebo,” apparently sleeping outside.

“God doesn’t really talk to me, but somehow, in my being I heard, ‘Just take the next step’” to help people like her, said Mrs. Reichert, a Presbyterian. “Then God and I had this argument”; she told him she was too busy, feeling unqualified to address homelessness.

“When I pulled into my driveway, I decided just to take the next step,” she said.

The next morning she asked a friend at the Board of Health in Northbridge what would be needed to use a church for a shelter. Coincidentally, her friend had just received a letter from the Commonwealth telling towns how to open temporary shelters.

In Jan. 2017, the rotating shelter opened. Four churches got involved: St. Patrick’s, United Presbyterian Church of Whitinsville and Fairlawn and Pleasant Street Christian Reformed churches, Mrs. Reichert said. This continued each winter until the COVID shutdown in 2020.

Then guests were housed in a hotel for $100 per room nightly. The money was raised by shelter representatives from the churches, she said.

“We committed to help [guests] very short term” if they worked to resolve their problems, she said. Helping them do that now is a homelessness navigator, whom the shelter received a grant to hire 1 and a half years ago.

Mr. Lapointe said he and Mr. Gannon talked with potential guests by phone to determine who to house at the hotel, and now at St. Patrick’s, based on their circumstances.

The navigator links them other services, helping with whatever they’re open to. Many homeless don’t want to find housing, Mr. Gannon said.

“It’s nice to be indoors, but sleeping under the stars is cool too,” said a guest who called himself Oppie. “When I can sleep under the stars, nobody comes and messes with me.”
He said others think homeless people are criminals, but he hasn’t been arrested for doing bad things.

“You treat people the way you want to be treated,” he maintained. “I still have my dignity. ... It took two decades of different circumstances that snowballed into this” present situation, including tax and mortgage increases.

Asked his plans, he said he wants to make it through this winter then “rise above what I’m going through right now.” It’s hard to get employment without an address or computer literacy, he said.

“It’s nice to come at the beginning [of the night] because you put a face with an unhoused person,” commented Barbara Fortin, of Blackstone Valley United Methodist Church in Whitinsville, who was volunteering for the first shift Friday with her husband, Dean. (When the five guests retired to their classroom-bedrooms, the Fortins planned to read or do computer work in the main hall.)

“They’re not statistics; they’re people,” Mr. Fortin said. You experience that better hearing their stories, which have a common theme of, “I made a lot of bad choices in my life.” He said it’s good they recognize this, but some feel they can’t turn their lives around.

Asked what he gains from volunteering, he replied, “It’s the right thing to do. ... God loves us and wants us to share that love with others.”

Mr. Lapointe said they might try to get other churches to help host the shelter again.
“We’re hoping to stay open all year long” in the future, Mrs. Reichert said.

“We’ve had some success stories,” she said. “One of the girls ... we got her to the point where she could get a job.” She went to nursing school and is now a nurse.