A congregation from Resurrection Lutheran Church voted against operating the city’s emergency shelter for cold weather in the winter of 2018 on a Sunday. This is only the second time in a row that they’ve had to vote on the subject this year.
Pastor Karen Perkins said she was “stunned.”
“I am not sure what the city will decide take on,” she said Sunday following an election.
The congregation first decided whether or not to submit a bid in the warming shelter of the city in the latter part of June. The voting was a split of 14-14 according to the president of the congregation, Karen Lawfer, which meant they did not submit a proposal at the time to the city.
There were no other groups in Juneau and, as a result, Lawfer called a congregational meeting to consider reconsidering. The deputy city manager Robert Barr spoke to members of the congregation while they were sitting in the pews of the church.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I’ll be honest and direct,” he told the crowd. “We do not have many alternative .”
Before the voting, Barr told the Juneau Assembly that a possible alternative would include an abandoned city bus that sat idle overnight. It could have 35 seats with room for smaller numbers of persons than 70 who occasionally were sleeping in the church during winter.
Some participants wondered whether any other facilities owned by the city could accommodate the shelter.
Barr stated that the city’s storage facility in Thane isn’t a good idea because the city requires it to store its goods all year long. The area in the Downtown Transit Center not used by the Juneau Police Department isn’t big enough. In addition, the Juneau Arts and Culture Center which was which was where St. Vincent de Paul was the warm shelter in the epidemic, is utilized by the arts group.
However, that didn’t suffice to convince the people. Lawfer declared that of the 31 who voted seven others voted no instead of yes.
“I’m extremely unhappy and depressed,” Lawfer said after the vote.
Lawfer claimed that the first vote occurred prior to the deadline for bids. She believes that some voters voted against the project because they believed that a different company would manage the shelter instead.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”Now that there’s no one other option I’m not sure how they’re feeling,” she said. “I am not sure what they’re thinking. .”
Lawfer acknowledged that Resurrection’s heating shelter’s setup was “not perfect however it worked.” She was optimistic in the hope that Resurrection Lutheran and city could reach an agreement on the amount of employees needed to operate it in the future.
Then, she’s not certain what’s coming in the future for those who relied on the warmth shelter.
“I’ll stroll along the street when they’ll stop, or even the cops will stop and say”What are these folks are going to be doing? People will ask me, ‘What am i doing?’ I don’t have a solution for them at the moment,” she said.
In an interview with the media on Monday early in the morning Barr explained that the shuttle bus is the only alternative. Barr said he’s scheduled to meet with other local service providers in the coming week for discussions on alternative options however they do not have enough area to accommodate the shelter.
Perkins Pastor Perkins fears that people will die without adequate warmth shelter. Anchorage has had already set a record for the most outdoor deaths per year.
She was crying and said she was proud of the way her church managed the shelter for warming.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I believe it was beneficial for the people in the community. I think it was a good thing for these people who I’ve met and cherish and who, honestly are beginning to go to church because they’re aware that they’re not going be treated as a victim,” she said. “They are trusting us in a few of our cases. It takes years for street people to believe in you. .”
The Glory Hall’s emergency shelter of 55 beds are filled. Also, their permanent housing units for supportive housing. The city’s seasonally-operating Mill Campground is scheduled to be closed on Oct. 16.
The span style=”font-weight 400 ;”>”I must be able to believe that God is in the present and God will act,” Perkins said. “God will act in and through us. It could be something amazing that I cannot think of. If my imagination isn’t able to convey it does not necessarily mean God cannot do something amazing. .”
She stated that she believed that God was working within her church, and that she had to trust in the process.
