Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, January 3, 2018
3
City opens emergency overnight shelter on South Lander St.
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
The City of Newburgh has opened
an emergency, overnight homeless
shelter on South Lander Street. The
temporary shelter was opened just in
time for the setting in of sub-zero-degree
temperatures last week. “Our objective is
to save lives,” said Colin Jarvis, executive
director of the Newburgh Ministry.
The Winterhaven II shelter is located
at 104 South Lander Street, in the building
formerly used as the Washington Heights
Community Center and once occupied
by a City of Newburgh Police substation.
The shelter is open from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m.
daily until March.
Currently, the facility can shelter up to
25 people. “It really makes a difference,”
city Assistant Fire Chief Bill Horton said
last week. “We had 19 people here last
night, and about a dozen the night before,”
The building was bright and warm last
Thursday, with skylights and a functional
heating system. A humungous fig tree
occupied the center of the lobby, planted
there about 15 years ago. “The downstairs
is for women and the upstairs is for men,”
said Horton. The shelter does not house
children or families, he said.
About a dozen cots were laid out in
the women’s area, covered in sheets and
blankets used the night before. “We’re
going to try to get a portable shower in
here,” Horton said.
The 6,000-square-foot building was
originally built as an underwear factory
in the early 1930’s by Sidney and Bernard
Davidson. It later housed the B and L
Dress Company and then the Helene Bag
Company, City of Newburgh Historian
Mary McTamaney said.
The shelter came about through a joint
effort between the City of Newburgh, the
Newburgh Ministry and Orange County,
which provided a total of $70,000 for
building repairs and staffing costs. The
new shelter fills a gap left by the recent
closure of the First United Methodist
Church and its emergency shelter on
Liberty Street.
With temperatures in the single digits
last week, staff extended the shelter
hours for safety, Jarvis said. “Whenever
the temperatures get critical, we will
make adjustments,” he said.
The ministry, city and county are in
preliminary talks to possibly expand the
existing Newburgh Ministry shelter to
help address chronic homelessness in the
city, said Jarvis. “The problem doesn’t go
away in the warm weather,” he said.
City of Newburgh Assistant Fire Chief Bill Horton stands inside the Winterhaven II overnight homeless shelter at 104 South Lander Street. The
shelter remains open until March.