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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, December 30, 2015
First United Methodist Church opens warming center
The warming center fills a need left
by the Our House drop-in center, which
closed its doors several weeks ago. Since
then, the city Activity Center served as a
temporary replacement for the drop-incenter.
“I’m delighted with this solution, and
that we have a church home and a pastor
with a background in this work,” said city
Mayor Judy Kennedy while touring the
facility last week.
Watson has worked for years at homeless shelters in New York City and
Brooklyn, where he still works part-time
at a 200-bed shelter in Greenpoint.
The new warming station will help to
address the overflow of people from the
Newburgh Ministry, the only year-round,
overnight homeless shelter currently
operating in the city.
The center will eventually hire four
permanent staff members, said Watson,
as well as volunteers. Watson said the
facility will apply for grants as well as
501(c)3 non-profit status.
Pastor Derrick Watson preps staff on opening day at the Newburgh Community Warming
Station.
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
A new warming center has been opened
at the First United Methodist Church
on Liberty Street. The center will provide meals, overnight shelter and a warm
place for the homeless in the City of
Newburgh.
“Our desire is to do our part to end
homelessness in Newburgh and become
a viable and visible resource for the city,”
Pastor Derrick Watson said in a December
press release.
The Newburgh Community Warming
Station will be open 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.,
seven days a week, and operate during
the cold-weather months from November
until March. The center will also be open
from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. to provide shelter
from the cold.
A handful of people arrived to the
warming station an hour after it opened
its doors for the first time last Wednesday.
“It’s a church,” said Michael D’Alberto,
a homeless 24-year-old recently released
from the Green Haven Correctional
Facility. “It feels safe.”
Pastor Watson gave a tour of the second
floor, where the facility will eventually
sleep up to 20 people per night. Two rooms
were lined with about a dozen, low-to-thefloor cots. “This is where we’ll do intake,”
said Watson, pointing to a room with a
desk and a chair.
Watson said the facility was still being
outfitted with furniture and other items.
The center is currently seeking donations
of chairs, new cots, tables, recliners, cans
of soup and packets of oatmeal, he said.
The new warming center was
opened with $25,000 in funding through
HONORehg of Middletown. While at the
facility, guests will be able to apply for
services for housing, addiction treatment
and job training.
The goal is to coordinate these services and enabling guests to use them
as a “stepping stone” to change, said
Watson. “The whole purpose is not to
allow people to stay homeless,” he said.
“We want to connect them to services that
will allow them to end the cycle. Working
with HONOR, we have those resources.”
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