As reported on KVRM, March 22:
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 as a case manager at Hospitality House, I help guests in several ways, and one guest I’d like to tell you about is a gentleman I’ll call Bill. Shortly after losing his wife, Bill was attacked in a local park, where he sustained a serious brain injury that contributed to his homelessness. It was a terrible month for Bill and we welcomed him into our shelter with open arms. One month ago, things were looking up for Bill. We were working with a great landlord in the area, and Bill was getting ready to move into his new home. However, the weekend before he was scheduled to move, Bill almost died. He was rushed to the ER with life threatening complications and the situation was touch and go for a while…
I’m happy to tell you, Bill pulled through and is doing even better today. He’s been recuperating in our shelter the last few weeks, getting stronger by the day, and now, he’s getting ready to move into his new home again!
We are beyond excited for Bill and if anyone listening right now has a room opening that might work for other guests in our shelter, give me a call directly at 530-559-5411. When a landlord agrees to rent out their home or room to a shelter guest, it’s a partnership we honor with full collaboration. We stay connected to the guest and the landlord at all times to ensure it’s a happy relationship for all involved long term.
If anyone listening right now would like to get more involved with us, we encourage you to do so by volunteering, making a financial gift at hhshelter.org, or joining us tomorrow for Empty Bowl at Peace Lutheran Church. Empty Bowl is a wonderful benefit for our shelter made possible by generous artists who donate handcrafted bowls and local chefs who fill those bowls with hearty soup. All attendees will also have a chance to hear personally from guests they’re helping at the shelter. A big thank you to Telestream, Peters’ Drilling Pump Service and Ace Propane for their loyal sponsorships every year to help make this event possible. Tickets for lunch are sold out, so if you’d like to go, buy your dinner tickets asap at hhshelter.org, at BriarPatch Co-Op, or at our thrift store, Bread & Roses Thrift & More.
As we head into a fun-filled weekend full of beautiful bowls and soup, I’d also like to take a moment to thank the many organizations who came and fed our hungry guests soup and more this week: Telestream, St. Patrick’s Church, John Bilheimer’s Group, Peace Lutheran Church, the Home Team, Seventh Day Adventists, and Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains. From all of us at Hospitality House, we thank you!
To everyone who dropped off needed items last week—we thank you as well! Now down to the nitty gritty needs of the shelter for this week…
- Shaving cream
- Hairbrushes
- Women’s under britches, sizes 4-7
- Women’s pants, sizes 5-10
- Women’s sneakers, sizes 7,8,9,10
- Men’s boxers, sizes M & L
- Men’s and women’s pajamas – all sizes
- Warm blankets
- Men’s long sleeve sheets, sizes L, XL and 2XL
Please drop off these urgent items to Utah’s Place, located in the 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.