In January 2008, Crestview Baptist Church began serving as an ARCH overnight "Cold Weather" shelter. We have agreed to take Friday nights when the temperature will drop below freezing. As of yet, we have not been asked to serve.
The way the program works is that when the temperature is expected to drop below freezing (and it is a Friday) we will get a call from ARCH. ARCH screens all the homeless that sign up to come to our shelter to make sure that they have not been behavioral problems at ARCH and to assure that they are not intoxicated. They also must go through the metal detectors before getting on the bus. We have agreed to serve 50 men. They will arrive by bus from ARCH. They check them off the list as they get off the bus and then again as they get on the bus the next morning. They will arrive at about 6:30pm. We will serve them a meal and then perhaps provide some entertainment before they go to sleep around 8:30pm. Our volunteers are there (all night) to help them feel welcome, but also to assure that they remain in the gym. They will have the option of an outside smoking area, but our volunteers will be monitoring it as well. If there are any problems, our volunteers will call the police. In speaking with the current program director, he was not aware of any such calls with the other churches in the program this past year (or previously for that matter). The bus arrives at 6:00am the next morning and we will give them a breakfast snack before they board the bus and go back to ARCH.
