The Refuge Homeless Shelter partners with local churches in order to give food and shelter to the homeless of Lapeer County during the winter months of the year.
Our Day Center is open year round during the day to give aid to the homeless and other displaced people in our area.
We are looking to gain more awareness for our cause, and to gain more partners in the work of helping the least fortunate in our county.
Our Day Center is open year round during the day to give aid to the homeless and other displaced people in our area.
We are looking to gain more awareness for our cause, and to gain more partners in the work of helping the least fortunate in our county.
We Are Not Taking In Guests - We Are Closed For The Season
The next season begins Sunday, November 1, 2020
Day Center Operations:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday - Noon-5:00pm
Other Hours By Appointment
Call 810-356-9880, ext. 3 for Appointment
The next season begins Sunday, November 1, 2020
Day Center Operations:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday - Noon-5:00pm
Other Hours By Appointment
Call 810-356-9880, ext. 3 for Appointment
From Crisis Comes Opportunity
The world has been turned upside down the past few months. The Refuge has been affected like everyone else. We have had to drastically change how we operated the last few months of our season. The concern grew among the churches regarding how to best serve the homeless and still maintain safety amid this pandemic.
Best practices suggested from the CDC for shelters during this pandemic includes minimizing volunteers and staff who have face-to-face contact with guests, developing a plan to clean and sanitize rooms daily, identify guests and volunteers who would be high risk and monitor them, quarantine guests who show symptoms of sickness or respiratory issues, ensure beds and mats are 6 feet apart from each other, ensure safe meal preparation and serving using gloves, masks, and food-safe protocols. Several of these requirements would be exceedingly difficult for our rotational shelter.
Given the difficulties involved the Board had decided to suspend our normal operations of using the churches for shelter. For the remainder of the season, we sheltered the homeless in our Day Center location. This facility not equipped for overnight stay. Though, with the few remaining guests, we were able to successfully shelter them for the rest of the season. We even extended our season as the state authorities implemented the Stay-Home-Stay-Safe order.
This crisis has highlighted the need for a single location for shelter in our community. If this crisis had happened at the height of our season, we would not have had the facilities or the volunteers to shelter the homeless. Rotating between the churches would not have been safe during the pandemic. We would have had to have closed our doors until the crisis had ended.
Experts are suggesting we will still need to practice social distancing and similar protocols throughout the rest of the year to ensure the safety of the community. Our rotational shelter model would need to be drastically overhauled or completely suspended. What does the future hold for The Refuge?
Board of Directors believes The Refuge needs to transition from a rotating shelter into a single location offering shelter to the homeless in our community. This by itself has its hurdles and problems. However, with a single location, we can limit contact between persons, able to quarantine individuals who are sick, ensure social distancing regarding bedding and mats.
What does The Refuge need to accomplish this new direction? First, we need a building to call home. Our ideal facility would need to:
Thirdly we need community support. Though we will not be a rotational shelter we will still need the churches and the businesses to volunteer where needed, offer food donations, to be financially generous to ensure our mission to shelter the homeless does not stop.
You have an opportunity to better help the homeless and displaced people in our community.
If you would like to get involved please go to www.therefugelapeer.org to learn more. Sign up for news and updates. You can also contact us at 810-356-9880 or email us at contact@therefugelapeer.org.
Best practices suggested from the CDC for shelters during this pandemic includes minimizing volunteers and staff who have face-to-face contact with guests, developing a plan to clean and sanitize rooms daily, identify guests and volunteers who would be high risk and monitor them, quarantine guests who show symptoms of sickness or respiratory issues, ensure beds and mats are 6 feet apart from each other, ensure safe meal preparation and serving using gloves, masks, and food-safe protocols. Several of these requirements would be exceedingly difficult for our rotational shelter.
Given the difficulties involved the Board had decided to suspend our normal operations of using the churches for shelter. For the remainder of the season, we sheltered the homeless in our Day Center location. This facility not equipped for overnight stay. Though, with the few remaining guests, we were able to successfully shelter them for the rest of the season. We even extended our season as the state authorities implemented the Stay-Home-Stay-Safe order.
This crisis has highlighted the need for a single location for shelter in our community. If this crisis had happened at the height of our season, we would not have had the facilities or the volunteers to shelter the homeless. Rotating between the churches would not have been safe during the pandemic. We would have had to have closed our doors until the crisis had ended.
Experts are suggesting we will still need to practice social distancing and similar protocols throughout the rest of the year to ensure the safety of the community. Our rotational shelter model would need to be drastically overhauled or completely suspended. What does the future hold for The Refuge?
Board of Directors believes The Refuge needs to transition from a rotating shelter into a single location offering shelter to the homeless in our community. This by itself has its hurdles and problems. However, with a single location, we can limit contact between persons, able to quarantine individuals who are sick, ensure social distancing regarding bedding and mats.
What does The Refuge need to accomplish this new direction? First, we need a building to call home. Our ideal facility would need to:
- Be large enough to shelter 20 people using social distancing protocols and quarantine procedures
- Bathrooms with showers or the ability to add showers
- Laundry facilities
- Full Commercial Kitchen
- Storage and office space
Thirdly we need community support. Though we will not be a rotational shelter we will still need the churches and the businesses to volunteer where needed, offer food donations, to be financially generous to ensure our mission to shelter the homeless does not stop.
You have an opportunity to better help the homeless and displaced people in our community.
If you would like to get involved please go to www.therefugelapeer.org to learn more. Sign up for news and updates. You can also contact us at 810-356-9880 or email us at contact@therefugelapeer.org.
Now Offering
The vision of The Refuge is not exclusive to providing housing. It is also to provide educational and/or vocational training, basic life skills, and spiritual guidance. As part of fulfilling our vision for our community we are beginning new services in 2020: Celebrate Recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous.
follow us!
|
|
|