Hope for the Journey Home

Guardian Angels, along with other churches, provide volunteers to Project Home, an emergency shelter for homeless families. It works in cooperation with Family Place, a day program for homeless families, and Ramsey County’s Homeless shelter located in Maplewood. Project Home is a program of the St. Paul Council of Churches.

The Maplewood Family Service Center has a licensed capacity of 55 beds. The need is much higher. To address that higher need, Project Home partners with churches to provide overflow shelter in church facilities. Project Home provides beds and support services to the church. The host church either by itself or in partnership with other churches provides volunteers to serve as evening and overnight hosts. During the day, the homeless families are transported to Family Place which provides food, a place for personal hygiene, and assistance in finding permanent housing to those homeless families.

Washington County does not have a shelter for homeless families, but will use hotels for temporary housing for homeless families. In addition, St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi has developed a support program to help homeless families in suburban Ramsey County and Washington County. They also are using hotels to provide temporary housing for homeless families.

St. Andrew’s, Guardian Angels, and other churches in suburban Ramsey and Washington County, along with staff from Valley Outreach, have been meeting to discuss how churches can better address the needs of the homeless. I am a member of that group. Our group looked at the feasibility of creating a Project Home style program as a complement to St. Andrew’s Housing Support Program. Out of those discussions came the proposal to use the Parish House at Guardian Angels as a temporary shelter for homeless families. The proposal is called “Hope for the Journey Home.”

The Parish House at one time was used as a Rectory and then as a Convent, but since last fall has been used only for occasional meetings. The proposal to use the Parish House as a shelter for homeless families was developed and presented to the parish administrator, Denny Farrell, to the pastor, Fr. Rodger Bauman, and to the Parish Pastoral Council. They were supportive.

The next step is to recruit churches in Washington County and suburban Ramsey County to provide volunteers to staff the shelter in the evening and overnight. The organizers envision each church committing to provide for volunteers for one week during the year as part of their outreach ministry. Staff from St. Andrew’s would train and supervise the volunteers.

If your church might be interested in learning more about this proposal or offering to provide volunteers, we would encourage you to attend an open house at the parish house on Tuesday, May 29, 7 pm. You will get a chance to see the space that would be used to house homeless families and ask questions. For more information, contact Marla Simmet at (651) 459-9448, Sally Krupich at (651) 739-7514 or me. This is a good opportunity for churches to address the needs of our community and to provide “Hope for the Journey Home” for homeless families.