J.O.Y. Ministries has been working with local emergency management to provide temporary shelter to those that we find in immediate need. Dispatch and other officials routinely call J.O.Y. Board members asking if we can shelter a person or family in immediate need, and we gladly agree. 

 

We have had a good partnership with Dispatch and law enforcement and hope that will continue. We also receive people at the Crisis Resource Center during business hours that are homeless. Our budget allows us to spend $65 per family to house these persons for the night until we can help them find permanent shelter. 

 

Typically, we encounter such folks once or twice a week, sometimes more in the winter months. Our Board has recently decided that we can no longer house people where we have traditionally done so, due to the poor living, sanitation, and safety conditions we have witnessed there, nor do we feel safe as women handling these emergencies at all hours. 

 

We have joined in a discussion with Dispatch and proposed a solution that we both found amenable that creates a safer, healthier, and more efficient solution. Therefore, we want to appeal to the local governments to join us in developing and managing this alternative. 

 

We have researched the costs and propose the construction of a vinyl building to house a bathroom and simple sleeping area for four persons that is outfitted with insulation, electricity, air-conditioning, heat, and water for between $10,000 and $12,000. 

 

The facility would be managed and maintained by J.O.Y., but would be used by law enforcement, as well. 

 

We will be asking for the county and city government to approve this project and help with funding by donating land and/or money and allowing law enforcement to use the building and patrol the area when it is in use. 

 

If you are interested in hearing more details of this proposal and our initial plan for how it would work, please contact Maggie Coleman, J.O.Y. Ministries Treasurer, at 704-281-3055. 

 

By Maggie Coleman