I’m Fred Skeen, and I’m a Case Manager at Hospitality House, helping individuals in our shelter with their next steps to move from homelessness to housing.
We have a guest, who I’ll call Nadine. She is 72 years old. She originally came from Oregon about five years ago to stay with an acquaintance on a horse ranch in Cedar Ridge. After a period of time things did not work out and she found herself homeless in Nevada County. She does have some family in the Portland, OR area. While we strive to reconnect people with their families, sadly, she is very estranged from them as of now, and as such she is not welcome back there to live with them. She experienced homelessness in the past while in Portland and was a guest at Catholic Charities of Portland. We were recently able to reconnect her with a Case Manager at that homeless services charity. They are willing to work with Nadine in the future to get her moved back up there. However, with the whole COVID-19 pandemic affecting everyone, that plan will need to be on hold. In the meantime, we are looking for a short-term rental room for Nadine right here in Nevada County.
Anyone listening that might have a simple bedroom to rent, that is close into town, please call me. Fred at (530) 559-5411.
Mark your calendars for May 5, 2020, which is Giving Tuesday Now, a global day of giving and unity as an emergency response to the unprecedented need caused by COVID-19. Please visit our Facebook or website at hhshelter.org on Tuesday, May 5th to stand together as a community in solidarity with our shelter’s guests and clients.
Normally at this time we thank all the cook groups who came and cooked over the last week, but to keep our shelter safe, our cook groups are supporting our meals by donating financial support and food, and Chef Chris is safely cooking all meals instead. We’d like to thank Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains, Mount Saint Mary Academy, Unity in the Gold Country Spiritual Center, Seasoned with Love, Choppers, The Home Team, and Grass Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church for all their help. I’d also like to give a shoutout to The Oaks Clubhouse, Friar Tuck’s Restaurant and Bar, Interfaith Food Ministry, SPD Markets, Grocery Outlet and the Food Bank of Nevada County for all their help this week too. To everyone who donated our most needed items last week, thank you as well!
Now down to the nitty-gritty needs of the shelter for this week…
• Women’s and Men’s jeans and pants
• Rain gear
• Handwarmers
• Hand sanitizer
• Deodorant
• Ibuprofen
• Tylenol
• Board games
• New blankets (new and packaged only)
• 3-part to go food containers to help with meal transportation
In addition to these urgently needed items, we are also actively collecting needed items to slow the spread of COVID-19. A few of these items include Airborn, disinfectant soap, disinfectant wipes, and disposable cleaning gloves. Please visit our website at hhshelter.org to see the full list. Please drop off urgent items to Utah’s Place, located in Brunswick Basin, past the DMV, at 1262 Sutton Way. For a tax receipt, please ring the doorbell and wait for someone to come outside to assist you. We greatly appreciate the community’s help at such times of certainty. If we all stick together, we’ll all get what we need. Thank you!