Housing Foundation Donates to Homeless Shelter
A Brewster-based foundation that provides affordable senior housing for Putnam residents has donated funds to support an organization which shelters Putnam’s homeless during the winter months. Brewster Senior Housing Foundation President Joseph DiVestea and Executive Director Marty Collins recently presented a check in the amount of $5,000 to Putnam CAP Director Judy Callahan, a member of the Brewster Emergency Shelter Partnership (BESP) Board of Directors.
“We were thrilled to be able to help provide funding for the homeless shelter this year,” said DiVestea. “It is our mission as a foundation to not only provide quality, affordable housing for Putnam residents, but also to give back to the local community. We strongly believe that supporting the Brewster Emergency Shelter Partnership goes hand-in-hand with that mission.”
The BESP was formed in November 2010, a year after a homeless man was found frozen to death in a wooded area of Brewster. The group welcomed their first “guests,” as the homeless are called, that same December. The four churches that provide sleep sights for the homeless include St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, First United Methodist Church, First Baptist Church and St. Lawrence O’Toole Roman Catholic Church. The shelters are open from December through March and each church rotates being host for a week at a time. BESP’s official governing body is their Board of Directors. Tom Pease, who serves as the treasurer, said most Putnam residents are not aware of the number of homeless people in their county.
“There are somewhere between 30 and 40 homeless people at any given time in Putnam,” Pease said. “We are still only serving a fraction of them. Last winter I think we averaged nine people per night, but there were some nights where we had 16 or 17 people.”
While St. Christopher’s Inn in Garrison can occasionally offer beds for the night during the winter months, the Brewster shelters are open seven days a week. Fundraising to keep them open has become a major effort for Pease and Callahan.
“We are just trying to raise funds to get through the season,” said Callahan. “It costs us, for just those four months, $30,000 to operate and we’re only paying one person, our shelter supervisor and we only pay $15 per hour.”
Callahan said BESP provides breakfasts to go and bag lunches on days when the local soup kitchen isn’t open. They also provide clean underwear and warm socks.
Pease said originally, the majority of the guests who used the shelters were Hispanic in origin but that has changed.
“Now we’re down to about 40 to 50 percent Hispanic and the rest are Caucasian,” he said.
Pease explained that everybody has a different story, a different reason for seeking out the shelters. Alcohol and drug abuse or mental health issues often play a role but there are other factors such as losing a job or simply being in between places without having a place to stay.
Pease and Callahan visit town boards in their quest for monetary donations and often meet with resistance as members deny their townspeople use the shelters. But Pease knows they have housed people from every town in Putnam at one time or another.
“Last winter we had several guests who had grown up in Putnam County and either lost their job or had a falling out with their family or moved away and then came back to Putnam and just couldn’t get it together and make it work. And, of course, they had no place to stay,” he said.
Pease and Callahan explained how the shelters are run and who the volunteers are.
“For every night that we operate, we have our supervisor and we have what we call an overnight host, so we have two responsible adults on the premises. These hosts usually come from one of the four participating churches but there are a number of other churches in the area that provide meals and volunteers as well,” Callahan said.
Shelter-seekers gather on Main Street in Brewster around 8:45 p.m. Should anyone show up with a child in tow, the Putnam County Department of Social Services is immediately brought in.
“The DSS can house a family,” Callahan said. “We cannot.”
Shelter doors open at 9 p.m. Guests are served a hot meal, and some shelters offer laundry facilities or a shower. The next morning, however, the homeless are back out on the streets in the bitter freezing weather by 6 a.m.
“It is a bleak situation,” Callahan said.
Donations to support the shelters are still being sought and checks made out to the Brewster Emergency Shelter Partnership are most welcome. These should be sent to BESP at 12 Main Street, PMB 269, Brewster, NY 10509.
