Each year, numerous St. Louisans find themselves homeless in the wintertime, according to the Xavier Winter Inn Program at St. Xavier College Church. However, help is coming in the form of new housing and support programs across the city.
The number of homeless in St. Louis decreased from 1,485 in 2005 to 1,305 in January 2010, according to a count by the city. Included in this count is Hopeville, a homeless community located near Laclede’s Landing.
Hopeville residents live in tents, but when severe weather causes the tents to collapse, many residents sleep inside of a defunct bus.
Anyone looking for shelter in Hopeville is welcomed by Dena Weber, the community’s elected mayor. She only has one request: please don’t make any trouble.
Though Weber claimed that “rules don’t work,” the community does have a few guidelines in order to get residents to work together to maintain the camp.
Additionally, there are several old grills to cook on and a campfire kept alive with fire wood and trash.
Hopeville residents have a simple plan for the future according to Weber.
“[We want to] keep doing what we’re doing,” she said
Teka Childress is a sociologist who has been trying to get those in need of shelter off the streets.
Despite the decrease in the number of homeless, she does not think things have much improved.
“Many people have reached out and many good things are happening,” Childress said, “but no, we haven’t solved the problem yet.”
Childress specified short term and long term implications for the general issue of homelessness.
The long-term goal is to get homeless citizens a stable income and housing, while short-term, immediate action goal is to find these citizens a place to stay at night.
“There are close to 200 people without shelter at night. We’re not doing enough to take care of these people’s needs,” Childress said. “It’s demoralizing.”
There are currently four locations that act as overflow housing: St. Francis Xavier Church, Metropolitan Community Church, Americorp, and Emmanuel Water Tower.
The program at St. Francis Xavier Church has 196 volunteers. Cots are set up, dinner is served, and volunteers play cards with the clients.
“We’ve been playing a big game of Uno every time,” Anne Osdieck, one of the program coordinators at the church, said.
According to Osdieck, the four locations share the days that they are open, with Xavier taking Wednesday, Thursday, and every other Friday.
“We can hold 14 people and we’ve been filled to capacity except the very first time,” she said.
Dan Goeddel, a student at Saint Louis University and a volunteer at St. Xavier, felt great after his first experience in the program.
“Everyone was really open and I really got to know a lot of them easily,” Goeddel said.
His night at St. Xavier also taught him more about the situation.
“I asked what the shelter could do better and one guy said ‘on the weekends we’re really suffering.’” Goeddel said, “I always thought there were enough shelters to take care of all the homeless, but on the weekends they don’t have anywhere to go.”
Childress would like to see many more churches do what St. Xavier is doing.
“If we got churches to each open and offer hospitality that would be a big piece of the solution,” Childress said. “My hope and dream is that we’ll get 10 or 15 churches in the city that will open their doors in the winter to 10 or 15 people each.”
