Shalom Ministries launching development program for homeless

Cold. Hungry. Homeless.

January can be a cruel month for the hundreds of people living on the streets of Spokane as the holiday bliss passes and winter settles in.

Shalom Ministries has been trying to help by serving more than 4,000 breakfasts every month. And twice a week the Shalom volunteers operating out of the basement of Central United Methodist Church serve dinner.

Now the organization is poised to begin a program envisioned to go a step further, with the help of a $30,000 grant from the Inland Northwest Community Foundation.

It’s called the Shalom Pathways Program, a simple effort to give participants job training, counseling, a small stipend and temporary housing in exchange for working with homeless clients.

Program participants could help cook or serve some of the 4,000 meals the organization serves every month in the church basement, work in the clothing bank or help out in the day room that offers computer access.

“We need to identify people that would have potential to have success in the program,” Shalom Executive Director Tim Swartout said. “There’s lots of different reasons why they’re in the situation they are. It may be drug and alcohol abuse. It may be mental illness. They may have made an improper choice in life.”

There’s plenty of work to be done. More than 300 people arrive for breakfast every Monday through Thursday at 7:30 a.m. They enter through an alley door into a brightly lit gymnasium – a safe zone where food and kindness are served in generous helpings. Dinner is served at 4:30 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays.

“That takes quite a laborious effort that’s mostly done by volunteers,” Swartout said.

There are also plans to partner with local companies willing to help train and employ participants.

Swartout already has identified one potential participant in the program: Patti McNabb. She is homeless, yet organizes the volunteers who serve the meals and also runs the clothing bank in exchange for a small stipend.

“She really has a heart and passion for these people that we serve,” Swartout said. “She knows a lot of them by name.”

Linda Skelton came to breakfast Wednesday morning with her husband, Bill. Her shoes were worn out, and her feet were wet and cold from trudging through slush and puddles.

McNabb knew how to help.

She fetched a pair of bright pink snowboots, knelt to the floor and fitted the boots to Skelton like a shoe salesman eager to make a sale.

Skelton only could offer a hug for thanks. “I’m so happy,” she said.

McNabb said the homeless come from all walks of life. Her own story includes working for many years in the restaurant business before problems left her homeless.

“There are so many people here who want to do something more in their lives and so we try to offer them hope,” she said. There are more than 1,000 homeless people in Spokane, according to a survey done last winter. Many who work on the issues surrounding homelessness believe the number is much higher, perhaps closer to 5,000, depending on where people search for people and the time of year.

The grant is enough to run the Pathways program for one year. After that, more funding will need to be found, Swartout said.

“We feel that we’re filling a niche with this program, where we can actually help a homeless person get back on their feet and back into the mainstream,” he said.