Can you spare a night to help homeless families?

From our friends at Human Solutions: 

Human Solutions Family Winter Shelter is in need of on-call volunteer overnight hosts.

Human Solutions Family Winter Shelter is a shelter for homeless families with children, located in Outer NE Portland. Doors are open from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m., 7 days a week from Nov. 1, 2011 through March 31, 2011. One paid overnight staff will be on site during hours of operation. Here, families have a warm, dry, and welcoming place to sleep and can begin to access additional services.

The staff member on duty stays awake all night and has the capacity to serve up to 65 homeless parents and children without a volunteer. However, numbers have been extremely high, hitting 60 on November 21 and 64 on November 22. There is an overflow area but in order to provide services in this overflow area additional help is needed.

The Family Winter Shelter is recruiting on-call volunteer hosts to assist overnight staff. The on-call volunteer host with the Family Winter Shelter will meet the following guidelines:

• Successfully pass a criminal background check
• Available with 24 hours notice between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.
• The overnight host will be able to sleep during the night, but must be available in case of an emergency
• Friendly and welcoming but also assist staff in enforcing shelter rules
• Bring their own bedding and pillow (sleeping mats provided)
• Refrain from use of alcohol or drugs during shift and not report to shift under the influence of alcohol or drugs

Families are welcome to volunteer together as a family.
Please contact Michael Lodge at mlodge@humansolutions.org or (503) 256-2280.