Pendleton Warming Station expands services, offers training
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, December 5th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
News release from Neighbor 2 Neighbor:
Neighbor 2 Neighbor opened the Pendleton Warming Station this past November 15. The station was opened using a new strategy of combining volunteer staff during the early evening with paid employees overnight. Dwight Johnson, Executive Director for N2N explained that the station started the season with an insufficient number of volunteers to maintain operations.
“It takes five staff per night to keep the station open,” Johnson explained. “We use three during our early evening intake period and two for our overnight shift. Almost nobody was willing to work the overnight shifts.”
Because of its volunteer shortage, the N2N board decided to try something new and hire three employees to cover these overnight shifts.
“Luckily we had just enough funding to try this,” Johnson said.
Almost the entire N2N board participated in adapting the organization to its new structure. Since 2011 the station has operated entirely with volunteers. Starting an employee operation was entirely new for N2N. Pendleton City Manager Robb Corbett offered up his Human Resource Director Sheri Allen to provide advice and counsel. In addition Bottom Line Results owner Mark Stansbury volunteered to assist with payroll.
After an almost month long search N2N located three individuals willing to try filling the positions. The Pendleton Warming Station opened on schedule using this new structure. Although three overnight volunteer shifts were still needed, the station was able to stay open consistently for the entire month. This was also a change in previous N2N guidelines. In the past the warming station would only open when overnight low temperatures were below freezing. The N2N board decided that by hiring employees the station could stay open consistently during the winter so that homeless individuals could have a reliable alternative to spending their nights on the streets of Pendleton.
During the last half of November the station provided 39 different individuals temporary shelter for the evening. Occupancy spiked at 16 during the last days of the month with an average occupancy of 11.6 for the period.
“We did not know what to expect this year when we opened,” said N2N Operations Lead Shirley Westfall. “But it appears there are still a significant number of people in the Pendleton area in need of housing.”
N2N is still in need of more volunteers, and is also looking to hire an additional employee as well. N2N has scheduled a training session at the Pendleton Warming Station located at 715 SE Court Avenue on Saturday, December 9 from 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM. Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer can drop by and receive this training with no obligation.
In addition, N2N will have an open house on that same day from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM for any member of the public interested in learning more about the Pendleton Warming Station. Facility tours will be conducted and staff will be on hand to answer questions.
Anyone who is interested in applying for the N2N overnight position should email N2N using their “Contact Us” web portal, or call the N2N administrative line. More information about Neighbor 2 Neighbor Pendleton, including how to volunteer or donate, can be found on the organization’s website at http://n2npendleton.org/, or by calling its administrative number at 765-791-8332.
