BELLOWS FALLS — The Greater Falls Warming Shelter is looking for more volunteers to staff the shelter each night.
The shelter operates seven days a week, with four volunteers needed each night, so there is a constant need for more volunteers to fill in for regular volunteers.
“Our regular volunteers are the lifeblood of our operation,” said Deb Clark, volunteer coordinator, “but they can't always be available, so we need others to fill in.”
Clark said all volunteers receive training and can serve as little or as often as they like. Two awake volunteers are needed from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. and from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m. each night.
Guests arrive at the shelter after 5:30 p.m., when they are met by Clark or one of the other openers and enjoy a meal brought in by other volunteers. The evening is spent watching videos, playing cards, reading, or doing jigsaw puzzles.
The volunteers have a separate room where they can read, watch videos, use their computers or catch up on other tasks while the guests sleep.
The shelter capacity is 10, with this year's average attendance about a half dozen men and women each night. As of mid-January, 15 men and four women have stayed at the shelter.
A statewide count of people in emergency shelters and transitional housing conducted by the Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity on December 3, 2015, found there were 486 people in publicly-funded homeless shelters, an increase of 61 over last year's count, and 236 in transitional housing, for a total of 722. Of those, 190 were children.
The genders are about evenly divided (219 female, 266 male, 1 transgender), and the overwhelming majority (286) are 25 to 61 years old. More than a quarter of them (27 percent) are employed, and nearly 80 percent of those 25 or older have a high school degree or less.
The OEO reports that the biggest increase since last year's count is among males, and there were 32 more people in families living in shelters. The number of children in emergency and transitional housing age 5 or younger (103) was higher than it has ever been.
The full report can be found on the OEO website at dcf.vermont.gov/oeo/reports.