SILVERTON

Silverton church opens expanded warming shelter

Christena Brooks
Special to the Appeal Tribune
Silverton Sheltering Service's executive director Hilary Dumitrescu and shelter manager Julia Marshall rest between last-minute preparations as they and other volunteers ready the new upstairs space at Oak Street Church for its 2019-20 season. The 30-bed shelter is open November through March, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.

Opening night, 2019.

Tim Sutton and Cort Martin, of Wy’east Electric, talk quietly as they install a lighted exit sign over the back door and a ceiling fan on the 20-foot ceiling. Manager Julia Marshall and executive director Hilary Dumitrescu count teacups, napkins and dishtowels. Volunteer Joseph Schmaus – in a raincoat, jeans and a friendly smile – stops by to offer last-minute help.

Such were the final preparations for the 2019-20 season at Silverton’s warming shelter. Every night, from now through March, Oak Street Church will open its doors to those without a place to sleep.

“Our shelter’s mission is very simple,” said Dumitrescu, who leads Silverton Sheltering Services, which operates the shelter as well as a day center in the basement of the city’s Community Center a few blocks away. “We are keeping people from dying of exposure in the cold weather.”

Entering its third year, the warming shelter is no longer a temporary operation requiring set up and take down every night and morning. Rather, the whole endeavor has moved from the church’s sanctuary to a large second-story space above it. Thirty cots, each with a plastic tote at its foot, a clutch of donated couches, and a TV and fridge will stay in place all winter, ready for guests every night.

Last year, homeless men and women came to the shelter by the dozens. By spring, 79 different people had stayed overnight. That was an increase from 2017-18, when 35 people came, and 2016-17, the shelter’s first year, when 26 slept there.

Every night, the shelter is open from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Staff and volunteers do what they can to make things relaxing and comfortable so guests can settle and sleep. A paid staff member, accompanied by at least one volunteer, stays awake all night.

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“I remember one woman last year asking, ‘Are you going to watch me all night?’ Marshall said. “I sort-of apologetically said, ‘Yes,’ and she said, ‘Oh, good!’”

Another time, Marshall noticed that all the guests seem to be tossing and turning. She was beginning to feel she’d failed at making the place comfortable enough, when a guest – clearly wanting to make her feel better – explained, “When you’re on the streets, you don’t sleep because it’s not safe. We’re just not used to sleeping all night,” she recalled.

Silverton’s shelter got its grassroots start in December 2016 when a then-SACA employee, Sarah White, started to worry about a homeless man in a wheelchair she knew. Temperatures were dropping, and she couldn’t bear the thought of him spending the night outside.

White approached the pastor at Oak Street Church, already serving its free Monday night dinners: “The answer was, 'yes,' without hesitation, and we were open the first night snow started to fall,” she said.

White became Silverton Sheltering Services’ first executive director, a job she passed to Dumitrescu in April to focus on individual clients’ case management. On the shelter’s opening day this year, she was at Legacy Silverton Medical Center, advocating for care for a homeless man with severe health problems, including a collapsed esophagus, from alcohol abuse.

White and Dumitrescu aren’t paid, but grant money is helping fund the night workers at the shelter. Dozens of committed volunteers make amenities for homeless and under-housed people possible. Every night, churches, groups and even individuals bring dinner to the shelter.

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They also often bring breakfast to the day center a few blocks away. On any given day at the Community Center, at least 20 people show up to eat, get services and socialize, Dumitrescu said.

The warming shelter’s opening day – Nov. 15 – was no exception. By 10 a.m., the day center on Water Street was packed with guests and volunteers. While advocate Trish Ambrose worked one-on-one with a guest and new hire Emily Neves assisted, people sipped coffee and ate homemade enchiladas.

“It’s a warm and comforting atmosphere,” said Nate, 40, a homeless man wearing cargo pants and a hand-knitted emerald green scarf. “The volunteers here are really trying to help me.”

Another guest, Greg, 65, is a retired truck driver who recently underwent heart surgery. While he has enough money to rent a room down the street, it’s still tough to make ends meet, and he comes to the day center for “food and company,” he said.

“If I didn’t have this place, I would be so disconnected from humanity; it wouldn’t be good for my psyche,” added another woman who didn’t give her name. She lives in her car. “It’s like a home away from home.”

Dumitrescu has stepped into her leadership role at Silverton Sheltering Services with a mixture of consummate warmth and zealous anger. She’s full of opinions and statistics; most of all she’s a voice of urgency for the disadvantaged.

She’s equal parts awed by community support for the homeless (“I’m convinced this city’s giving mindset started many years ago at the community dinners.”) and frustrated with critics and anyone who ignores the homeless. (“We could solve this problem overnight if we all wanted to.")

A former teacher from California and business owner, Dumitrescu turned 50 this month. On Facebook, she asked all her friends and acquaintances to donate to the shelter instead of giving gifts. In three days, collections topped $5,000.

Afterward, she said, “We have an extraordinary amount of people in this town who want to help, who look at a homeless person and think, ‘That could be me.”