Hospitality House is the only emergency homeless shelter in Nevada County, with 69 beds for homeless men, women and children.
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.
Today, I want to mention the wonderful work of three amazing organizations who are collaborating to improve the quality of the lives of our shelter guests. A big shout out to Chapa-De Indian Health, Lions Club and Gold Country Hearing. It’s important to recognize these outstanding organizations who are collaborating with Hospitality House to restore our guests’ health.
Chapa-De, for example, is literally bringing smiles to our guests, and helping them restore their dental health. Guests that have lost all their teeth are now looking forward to smiling again with a full set of dentures, and access to dental checkups. Chapa-De is also working on helping our guests to avoid the onset and management of diabetes for a healthier and long-lasting life. Participants learn about eating healthy, being physically active and managing stress, weight loss and healthy lifestyles.
Lions Club, on the other hand, are helping guests with vision care. Once guests obtain a prescription from their eye doctor, they are provided with a voucher that allows them to get free lenses. Lions are known for their work to improve the lives of the visually impaired and prevent blindness within the underprivileged community.
We are also appreciative of Gold Country Hearing for providing hearing aids, mostly for our elderly clients as hearing aids are not always covered by medical insurances. Gold Country Hearing is helping guests restore their hearing for a better quality of life. Good hearing will allow guests to get back on their feet, essential for working, enjoying activities and allows them to connect with others in the community as well as with their love ones.
As the homeless age and some have neglected their bodies for a variety of reasons. Sometimes deterioration is due to natural causes but also attributed to the lack of health insurance, poor hygiene, substance abuse, not staying connected with health care and denial of the rough lifestyle. Being homeless takes a toll on people’s health, and many are not aware until its evident that their body has weakened. We are committed to work with organizations such as Chapa-De Indian Health, Lions Club and Gold Country Hearing to restore the health of our guests! We will continue to follow up with wraparound services now and after guests leave, and certainly after they are housed. We want to continue to bring these services to improve the quality of life of our existing and former guests in which many are not able to obtain or afford these services for themselves.
Did you know? Santa Claus is taking a break from the North Pole and heading to Bread & Roses Thrift and More for a special Santa event. Santa will greet everyone that comes through Bread & Roses Thrift and More on Saturday, August 31 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.! Patrons will be treated to complimentary cookies, prepared by our culinary students, refreshments, Christmas music and the opportunity to take pictures with Santa in his swaggy summer attire. No purchase is necessary to meet Santa. All proceeds benefit Hospitality House Community Shelter.
This past week, we were blessed by many caring individuals who prepared meals and we are beyond grateful. I’d like to give a big thank you to Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains, St. Mary’s School, Unity in the Gold Country, Seasoned with Love, Choppers, The Home Team, and Seventh Day Adventists. 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…
Blankets
Boxers, sizes M & L
Cotton socks
Men’s deodorant
Men’s jeans, sizes 34 – 38
Men’s shorts, all sizes
Men’s t-shirts, sizes M, L & XL
Razors
Sleep Pants, sizes M & L
Please drop off urgent items to Utah’s Place, located in Brunswick Basin, past the DMV, at 1262 Sutton Way. For all other donations that may benefit a homeless guest or the shelter in general, please take them to the backdoor of Bread & Roses, our thrift shop, located at 840 E. Main Street, directly next door to Sierra Cinemas. Guests at our shelter are given shopping vouchers for the store to buy what they need, so your donation directly helps them. All other items are sold with 100% of the sales supporting the shelter’s operations. Thank you for sticking together so that we all get what we need.