Jenan Taylor
15 July 2024
A faith-based charity for people experiencing homelessness is asking for more volunteers for overnight shifts as temperatures continue to plummet this winter.
The volunteers enable the Yarra Valley and Frankston winter shelters to stay open overnight to provide unhoused people with care, hope and respite from the bitter cold.
Part of the Stable One network, the shelters opened in June for this year’s guests staffed by volunteers from the community and a range of churches. These include Peninsula City Church, St Anne’s Catholic and St Paul’s Anglican in Frankston, and Baptist parishes in Lilydale.
Each shelter venue accommodates up to 10 guests a night, but getting volunteers for overnight shifts has been challenging.
Stable One said it was hard to get people for those shifts at the Yarra Valley shelter because many had work or family commitments.
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Chief executive Katherine Kirkwood said the night shifts were a crucial part of the network’s goals of providing more than a place to stay.
She said most guests had meaningful, often therapeutic conversations with the volunteers in this night setting.
“They’ve eaten a hot meal, and maybe played a jigsaw, and then settled down. Sometimes, it might be very late, they get up and move around and just open up about their lives,” Ms Kirkwood said.
She said the shelter managed to cover the shifts so far, because it could never imagine asking guests to leave after dinner to brave the cold.
Frankston Winter Shelter said despite having more volunteers than ever since it opened three years ago, it struggled to fill the night shifts across the five days it operated.
Project Manager Lara Waldron said they would suit people who were retired or who didn’t have too many commitments over a period of just three months.
Volunteer and St Paul’s Frankston congregant Blanche Dzur said she did overnight shifts for a while, but it was getting harder as she became older.
Ms Dzur said she became a volunteer because there was a need for it, and she was able to help.
She felt it was important because Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”, had always moved her.
Read more: As the people of God, we must help those struggling with homelessness
Ms Dzur said it was a privilege to provide an ear to people who rarely had the chance to sit down and talk to someone who listened.
She enjoyed being able to contribute to a group that needed a good gender balance because plenty of unhoused women as well as men sought the help of the service.
Ms Dzur said the women guests often found it harder to sleep easily because of their experiences.
She was further inspired to help make a difference in their lives when she’d learned what good quality sleep could do for people experiencing homelessness, during a training session.
She said a policeman informed volunteers two consecutive nights of decent sleep made it easier for someone sleeping rough to cope with different things, like facing Centrelink.
Ms Dzur said it was wonderful being part of a group of people drawn from so many different churches who were committed to helping others who had nowhere to go.
“My granddaughter often asks me what churches do, and it is especially wonderful to be able to tell her that this is what they do,” she said.
Homelessness support and referral service Anchor Community Care said it had been called out to assist about 60 rough sleepers this calendar year so far, more than in previous years.
Youth and homelessness services manager Peter Dinsdale said they were the cohort most reflected in the homelessness death rate.
Mr Dinsdale said Anchor dealt specifically with the Yarra Valley Winter Shelter and found multiple good outcomes from its program over the years.
He said these included some volunteers helping guests find housing solutions and getting them off the streets.
Overnight shifts at the Yarra Valley and Frankston winter shelters run from about 11.00pm to 6.00am, and are usually split into smaller shifts.
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