Shelter from the cold!
One year after the initial opening of Live and Let Live, an emergency shelter for the homeless of DeKalb County, the non-profit group celebrated Saturday, January 18 with an open house of the shelter’s expansion at 656 West Broad Street.
Until recently, the shelter operated in a smaller space in the back of the Vitality Fit building owned by Tyler Cantrell, which the board of Live and Let Live had leased. But after the fitness center changed locations, Live and Let Live saw its opportunity to expand and leased the entire building.
“We became aware that our landlord was going to move his business and open up a larger space with more parking so he offered us the chance to lease the building and or buy it,” said Gina Arnold, Live and Let Live board member and donations executor. “We were not in a place where we could purchase but we were even a little bit cautious about leasing the larger space because it was quite a bit more money than we had been paying before. He (landlord) has been so gracious to give us a discounted rate but still it’s a larger space. He worked with us for a short-term lease to see if we are able to sustain it over a period of time. That’s still to be determined but it has been amazing to watch the outpouring from our community with donations of both goods and time and finances to where we are more assured that this is something our community supports and hopefully we will be able to sustain it long term,” said Arnold.
Currently, the shelter is open on a limited basis from 6 p.m. nightly until 7 a.m. the following morning. On extremely cold days, the shelter could be open more if volunteers are available to staff it.
“When our guests come in at 6 p.m. they usually go straight to the hot coffee to try to warm up a little,” said Arnold. “We are open for showering. Many of them (guests) will give us their laundry. Our volunteers that open up help people get through the showering and the laundry services. We man the machines and give the laundry back to the guests and they do their own folding, putting away. We feed a hot meal at night and snacks through the evening and a breakfast the next morning. We even send out snacks with them if they want to take a few cereal bars, fruit, and things like that the next morning when they leave,” explained Arnold.
“We have storage totes for men and women, sorted by hats, gloves, men’s underwear, women’s underwear, men’s socks, women’s socks, hygiene items, and all of the things you would need including lotions, shampoo, razors, etc. This storage area is separated so when we need a specific thing we don’t have to dig through all of the donations,” Arnold continued. “They (guests) often come in needing a change into something so they can shower and put on something clean and then we will launder what they have on. Sometimes they leave what we have given them in a locker to reuse again and if they have a need to wear it out we let them take it. That’s how we rotate through things that are donated,” she said.
“Our help ranges based on the need. Sometimes we have families who have a home but they may need a food box so we make a food box on occasion. Its not something we normally do but if we are aware of the need, we try to meet it. We also try to put them (homeless) in touch with other agencies that can help. Many of our guests come for just the meal. They may come just for showering or laundry, and they may sleep in their vehicles somewhere else. They don’t all come in and stay overnight but many do,” Arnold said.
Live and Let Live continues to rely on donations and volunteers to sustain its mission.
“People ask how they can help. Financial help allows us to put that toward whatever we need and sometimes that is utility payments, now that we have a larger space, and helping us with our lease. The bulk of our donations come from the goodness of our community,” explained Arnold.
“We have an Amazon wish list on our Facebook page. Live and Let Live DeKalb County is on Facebook and on that Facebook page there is an Amazon wish list and a GoFundMe donation account that is running. They can also see one of us for that purpose. We have our care calendar on Facebook where people can sign up to volunteer their time or to come and serve a meal that someone else has donated or sometimes they can sign up to provide a meal. We have a phone number like a Google number. It actually rings to some of our volunteers, so it may not be the same person that answers each time, but the shelter phone number is 615-281-9799. We won’t be able to see who is calling and they don’t see our number. Its just a random Google number. We can’t call you back on that number unless you leave us your actual phone number. It’ll just say shelter call from our phone,” explained Arnold.
“If you can’t drop off donations after 6 p.m. some of us can arrange to meet you at a different time to accept donations. We do take clean gently used clothing. We try to stick with things that are small, medium, large, or extra-large in size rather than number sizes because we can’t store it all,” she said.
With greater capacity, Arnold hopes the shelter’s outreach will grow.
“Its just been amazing to see the love of this community and our guests are always so very appreciative. I had one gentleman tell me last winter he thought nobody cared about us. We have seen through this ministry that people do care,” said Arnold.
“Some of them (guests) we serve do work a job if they are able but some are unable to work due to a physical or mental disability. We make accommodations around their work schedule so they can come in and out. We have many un-housed that are still in homeless camps in our community. Its our hope that they will see that we are not going to close our doors and that we are going to be here so they will feel free to leave their area and come in and trust us for some stability in housing,” Arnold explained. “With the homeless population often they won’t leave what they have established as their space because its so hard for them to find a space that they don’t get run off of. For them to have found a space, many times they don’t want to leave it to come in and there are other reasons. There are some legitimate safety and trust issues why they don’t leave their space to come in and get warm. We are just hoping they will see and hear through word of mouth from each other that this is a safe place,” said Arnold.
