10 tragic deaths took place within the unhoused community during the extreme winter weather we experienced at the beginning of this year.
Shelters around the county are putting in the work to make sure that those who are living without a home are protected and finding comfort as we head into another wet season.
One of those shelters is Eureka Rescue Mission in Old Town, Eureka.
“To be honest, we’re always prepared, so typically at this time of the year, we’re gathering blankets and things like that because we have extra people that come in for services,” Bryan Hall, the Exec. Director at the Rescue Mission said. “We want to make sure that everybody has a blanket or two when lying down. but our facilities are heated, so there’s not a whole lot of that anymore.”
The Rescue Mission has always served as an emergency shelter, and compared to previous years, they have much more room.
“On the women’s side upstairs, we’ve got a couple new rooms and so we’ve added a couple of three bunks in there. So we have a little bit larger capacity,” Hall said. “On the men’s side, we had our downstairs dormitory, which was stacked full of unassembled beds and also in the women’s shelter, we were able to move a bunch of those inside the women’s shelter after the renovation. Now we have more room in the men’s shelter dormitory […] we’re not at max capacity but with weather like this, I’m figuring that there’s going to be more people coming in.”
The Rescue Mission is an alcohol-free facility, however with the demand they saw last year–the shelter relaxed their requirements for this winter.
“Just come to the door to receive services, we do have a lower barrier at this time of the year for people that may come in with a little bit of alcohol, but we’ll warn them the night before if they come in,” Hall said. “We’ll let them have services if they can behave themselves and we urge them and encourage them not to be drinking when they come in because oftentimes that creates problems, we’re still holding to our zero tolerance policy, but we’re not rejecting anybody from services right now.“
And the services they do provide in an emergency and year round are…
“Food, clothing and a warm place to sleep […] lots of people to hang out with everything that you would need at home, we provide here on a larger scale,” Hall said.
Rescue Mission will be holding a big Christmas meal at their main facility on second street this Saturday, Dec. 23rd. As well as a gift distribution, organizations and businesses have been donating gifts to the shelter all month.
The shelter is located at 110 2nd St in Eureka.
