Hospitality House is a year-round emergency homeless shelter for the general homeless community in Nevada County, and since the onset of the pandemic, we’ve shifted into a 24/7 operation, working in partnership with multiple agencies around town in a collective effort to help as many people as possible in crisis.
My name is Fred Skeen. I’m a case manager at Hospitality House. My job is to assist guests with qualifying for social services benefits, arranging medical care referrals, and eventually getting them into independent housing. We make every effort to guide our guests in their transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency and housing.
I must explain that sometimes success is represented by “falling back” onto the supports of the past. We have a returning guest sheltering with us who I will call John. John experienced success in our shelter program at the end of 2019. John went on to regain employment, participated in outpatient Substance Use Disorder (SUD) programing and returned to independent living by mid-2020. However, by the first of January 2021 he had unfortunately relapsed. He lost his rental location and was living in his car again. Even with this severe setback, he still knew we would be there for him and made the wise choice to get help at our shelter. He was heavily intoxicated, and we transported him to the local hospital to manage his acute detox from alcohol. After a few days at the hospital, he was able to be discharged and transferred to into our Recuperative Care program, which is a program we started with Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital and County of Nevada to help individuals recover from their injuries and ailments. John is now re-engaging in all the necessary out-patient SUD support services. He is again beginning to apply for employment. He is doing all the right things to get his life back on track again. John’s “revival” so to speak, has been facilitated by his sense of trust and caring he feels for the shelter’s staff and the wraparound case management services offered here at Hospitality House. We never give up on anyone.
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, Meals by Heels, Unity in the Gold Country Spiritual Center, Peace Lutheran Grass Valley, CA, The Home Team and Grass Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Church for all their recent help. 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…
•PPE masks and gloves (please keep donating these)
•New pillows
•Twin size blankets
•Bottled water
•Hand warmers
•Alka seltzer
•Travel bags/backpacks
•Headphones/earbuds
•Brushes/combs/hair ties
•Toilet paper
•Paper towels
•Men and Women’s winter gloves
•Men’s jeans, sizes 30-36
•8 oz paper coffee cups (please no lids or Styrofoam/plastic cups)
•Women’s underwear, sizes S, M, and L (or 5,6,7 and 8)
•Men and Women’s sweatpants, sizes M, L, XL and 2XL
•Ensure/Boost drinks for a guest undergoing chemo and radiation treatments
•Plastic shower curtains and attachment rings for the Outreach Dorm’s bathroom shower)
Please drop off urgent items or mail them to Utah’s Place, located in Brunswick Basin, past the DMV, at 1262 Sutton Way in Grass Valley. 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 uncertainty. In the words of Utah Phillips, “If we all stick together, we’ll get what we need.” Thank you!