It has become clear to our Church membership that there is indeed a need for resources in our community of
Westfield, NY. For those that are homeless or in need of safe housing there are no public assistance offices located in our community. Those that are looking for assistance would have to travel to Dunkirk (about 15 miles away) or to Jamestown (about 25 miles away) and let's be honest ... if you have no money or transportation 15 - 25 miles is a rather long distance. In fact, there truly are not many services offered in the other two near-by communities of
Ripley and
Brocton either ... we would like to do something about that.
While working to come up with some sort of action plan to help the homeless population in and around our community, we found that there was an Episcopal Parish in Eugene, Oregon
Episcopal Church of the Resurrection that had a hand in helping their whole community come together to try and address the needs of homeless in their community. They had come up with a
Conestoga Hut design shelter that measures 6' x 10' and helped to start things off by having a number of them in their parking lot.
Conestoga Hut
The city of Eugene then came up with a dedicated area and homeless housing project the call "Opportunity Village".
Link to Opportunity Village, Eugene
: http://www.opportunityvillageeugene.org/ We found that our small Church parking lot would not allow us to build that style shelter, however we found yet another design created by
Paul Elkins that he had in mind for use as an
emergency deployment shelter. Paul's website:
http://www.elkinsdiy.com/
Paul Elkins' design
We did attempt to use parts of both the Church of the Resurrections' Conestoga Hut and Paul Elkins' Emergency Deployment Shelter. The St. Peter's portable homeless shelter size is approx. 4' wide x 8' long x 38" high. It is clear that one small portable homeless shelter does not a village make ... however we are hopeful that the good people of Ripley, Westfield, and Brocton will want to become involved with helping to come up with a solution for those in our communities that are having to deal with a very difficult time in their lives.
Blessing of the St. Peter's shelter
We hope that this little portable shelter may help in some small way. The cost to build is in the $300.00 range so when you break-it-down ... if 15 people donated $20.00 each ... another shelter could be built. How many of us in WNY go out for pizza, wings, and a beer to find that we have spent much more than $20.00 on a quick dinner? Between the three communities of Ripley, Westfield, and Brocton there are about 5,500 people ... something needs to be done to help that percentage of the population that are homeless or in need of safe housing. Our true hope is that something more permanent can be done so those that are in need can be served.
The Rev. Virginia Carr, Rector
"blessing of the shelter"
01-19-2014
Placement of the portable shelter in our church parking lot.
Rev. Virginia Carr
Location of Portable Shelter
Items in the shelter picture and interior picture with items in place
Should you wish to donate to the project or find out more:
Call The Church Business Office
(716) 326-2064
Email
Mail
St. Peter's Episcopal Church
12 Elm Street
Westfield, New York 14787
St. Peter's Church Website
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