As reported on KVMR, May 17:
Hospitality House is the only emergency homeless shelter in Nevada County, with 69 beds for homeless men, women and children.
I’m Nicole Lescher and I work as a Shelter Case Manager at the Hospitality House. I work one-on-one with guests to help them set goals that lead to stable health and housing. One guest I’d like to tell you about is Carina.
Carina and I have worked together for a year since I began working at the shelter. Carina has been working diligently 1 and 2 jobs since I met her and she has been saving her money. With the impacted housing market, Carina time and time again applied to rentals and was overlooked due to lack of rental history. Last week Carina signed a lease for a very sweet one-bedroom apartment. I tell this story because it is exemplative of the trial that many of our guests go through when they are not the ‘ideal renter’, being that they do not have rental history, credit history and make three times rent. Occasionally I like to call out to our community and ask those who have rental properties, to think about renting to our guests. In addition to helping out someone in need, guests also get continued case management housing support for their case manager once they are housed. If you are hearing this and think, “ahh, this applies to me as a potential landlord”, please reach out and I would be more than happy to speak with you further. You can reach me at 228-9127.
People like Carina motivate me every day to do more, and if you’re thinking about whether you’d like to get involved with our efforts to help people return to housing, this is the perfect time to act. Right now, we have a few donors willing to match EVERY donation made to our shelter, dollar for dollar. Every gift, big or small, will automatically be doubled and stretch our reach that much further. This generous offer ends on May 31, so I encourage everyone to head to our website, hhshelter.org, to make a gift today.
We appreciate everyone who supports us, whether through financial means, volunteering, telling others about our work, or shopping at our thrift store, Bread & Roses. Bread & Roses is only in business to support our shelter, and just about every day, there is a unique sale taking place, including this Saturday from 10am to 6pm. There are so many spring dresses right now lining the store, just waiting for a good home, and remember, every single sale directly supports our shelter operations.
This past week, we were blessed by many caring individuals and we are beyond grateful. I’d like to give a big thank you to Alta Sierra Latter Day Saints, Twin Cities Church, Trinity Episcopal, the Emergency Team, Kitchen KutUps, the Home Team and Abundant Life Church for coming out to cook. 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…
- Men’s jeans, sizes 34 – 36
- Men’s shirts, sizes L & XL
- Men’s sneakers, sizes 11- 13
- Men’s shorts, sizes 32 – 38
- Women’s jeans, sizes 10- 12
- Women’s shirts, sizes M, L & XL
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.