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GREENSBORO — The winter emergency — or WE — network of seasonal shelters for the homeless will expand this year to include the downtown YWCA building as a consolidated women-only site.

The spaces in the existing locations will be assigned only to men — opening up another 12 beds for men.

“That’s creative thinking to look at big empty unused or under-used buildings as temporary shelters,” said Liz Seymour, executive director of the Interactive Resource Center, which is just blocks away and provides a place for the homeless to go during the day to wash clothes, use a computer or get help looking for a job.

The emergency shelters differ from the traditional ones at the Salvation Army’s Center of Hope and Urban Ministry’s Weaver House, which lay down extra mats in their lobbies each winter for anyone who shows up.

The church-based sites are assigned a set number of participants who are expected to stay at the same site throughout the program. Volunteers provide meals and bedding and work with guests on connecting to resources and finding jobs and housing.

Last winter, 110 participants were assigned shelter beds. That number is expected to increase to at least 123 beds this year. Last year, the men’s spaces stayed full, but the women’s sites were never full. The locations are for adults only, which keeps out women with children.

Members of First Baptist, which housed one of the women’s shelters the last two years, and at least one other congregation, will partner this year with YWCA, which will provide 25 beds for women. The YWCA building is wedged between North Church and North Davie streets and had been up for sale. The YWCA will set up beds in the gymnasium.

“We had actually talked about it last year as emergency shelter,” said Lindy Garnette, the nonprofit’s executive director. “We had homeless people who were sleeping outside, around the building anyway.”

Grace Community Church, which ran the other women’s shelter, will become a shelter for men.

The emergency shelter program, run by Greensboro Urban Ministry, costs about $100,000 annually, covering a full-time person to oversee each shelter overnight. Not included is the cost picked up by each site to feed and house 10 to 20 guests for the 120-day program.

Although 10 host churches provided the space last year, many more churches in the community helped out by volunteering and providing resources, such as food and funding.

Because the number of people needing shelter normally drops during the summer but has stayed steady, and soup kitchens are serving more meals than ever, Urban Ministry is bracing for the worse.

“Money drives what we can do,” emergency shelter director Sheron Sumner said.

The program will hold a meeting for anyone interested in participating at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 in the Mullen Life Center at First Presbyterian Church.
 

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com