Mega-shelter effort in Vancouver winds up another season

VANCOUVER, Wash. – The promise of a job draws a young family with two small children from Ohio. But they find no work here in southwest Washington, where high-tech, timber and fishing are down amid 13 percent unemployment.

Penniless, they land in a homeless shelter at St. Andrew Lutheran Church. They are among "the new homeless" that the Rev. Jim Stender sees much more of now, hardworking people who are no match for the recession. For nine years, St. Andrew and nearby St. Paul Lutheran Church are sites of two homeless shelters that together are part of one of the biggest such initiatives in the Pacific Northwest, called Winter Hospitality Overflow, or WHO.

Every day from November to March, WHO provides shelter here when all other Vancouver shelters are full. That's all the time. St. Andrew takes in women and families. Single men are at St. Paul.

The numbers since the recession have "gone off the charts," said the Rev. Chris Nolte of St. Paul. Some 175 men will have received shelter at St. Paul between last November and March, many staying weeks.

At St. Andrew, 400 families will stay, again some for long periods. Together, 10,000 bednights will have been provided by 1,500 volunteers putting in an astounding 13,000 hours of service.

Volunteers and support comes from 40 Vancouver churches, and also from social-service agencies such as Share, a government/private partnership to aid the homeless.

“This has been a marvelous cooperative effort,” Stender said.

The pastors don't preach. "This is not a crusade," Nolte. Instead, it's a two-way street. A decade ago, some of the members of the two congregations sat in the back pews red-faced and fuming about the proposed mega-shelters. Those same people now are doing the overnight shifts.

"It's amazing what the guests bring to us," Nolte said. Said Stender, "In their faces, you see the reflection of Christ. I hope they can see Jesus in us, as well."

Pictured top to bottom: Dinner, a student, team leader Geri Hiller, and bedding down at St. Paul in Vancouver.

Story by Rachel Pritchett; Courtesy photos