St. John Parish’s winter overflow shelter open

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

WORCESTER – With temperatures that dipped below zero and a record number of homeless people in Worcester County, St. John Parish opened a winter overflow shelter at the St. Francis Xavier Center.

Volunteers at the center located at 20 Temple St. have fed those in need at no charge on weekday mornings for decades, but now the center also provides a free place for them to sleep at night.

“There’s just not enough shelter beds,” said Father John F. Madden, St. John’s pastor. “It’s just been so, so cold. So we thought we would try to do this.”The center served as a shelter for about 60 people for a few nights in December and early January when the temperature dropped.

 The Southern Middlesex Opportunity Council helped staff the shelter.When 22 inches of snow fell on Worcester in late January, St. John’s worked with the city and SMOC to provide an around-the-clock shelter for four days at the Worcester Technical High School gymnasium.

After that weekend, St. John’s volunteers wanted to know what they could do next. About 50 of them met with Father Madden on Friday, Jan. 30, and plans for a more lasting shelter were posted on social media.

The overnight program began two nights later on Feb. 1 and was scheduled to run through the month, but Father Madden said the center will likely remain open at night even longer. The parish has a permit with the city to house people through March 19 and Father Madden said the shelter could remain open after that if need be.

Danielle Cutillo and Krystal O’Leary have volunteered at the St. John’s Food for the Poor for a couple of years and they oversee the shelter at the center.

The city provided 46 cots for the shelter at Worcester Tech and St. John’s continues to use them. Fire laws prevent any more beds, but Miss Cutillo said that on some nights the center housed nearly 90 people. Some guests sat on chairs and rested their heads on tables. Some of those who were fortunate enough to get a cot were exhausted and fell asleep as soon as they arrived at 5 p.m.

Mrs. O’Leary said the shelter had to limit its capacity to 50 a couple weekends ago when the temperature dropped below zero, but whoever was unable to get a bed still received food, donated hats, gloves, sweatpants, blankets and underwear, and transportation to another shelter on Queen Street if they wanted to go.

The Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance reported last June that there was a record-high of 3,110 homeless people in Worcester County last year, about 500 more than the year before. That number does not include people living in cars or staying with friends or relatives.

Worcester suffered through its coldest January since 2015 last month and experienced a low of minus-3 degrees on Jan. 24. The average temperature of 21.8 degrees was almost three degrees below normal.

Miss Cutillo, 32, of Worcester, is the shelter administrative coordinator for the Central Mass. Housing Alliance and she helps run family shelters. She believes that more needs to be done for individuals experiencing homelessness and she wants to help them.

“Danielle’s passion is contagious because it’s always so positive,” Mrs. O’Leary said.
Mrs. O’Leary, 40, of Holden, is a St. John’s parishioner and nurse by trade, who stays at home with her four children.

In order to provide dinner and warm clothing for the overnight guests, the center created an Amazon wish list of 839 items, and nearly every wish has been granted. Other people dropped off items on their own. However, donations of snacks, baked goods, desserts and drinks would be welcomed. First, however, contact Mrs. O’Leary at [email protected] or Miss Cutillo at [email protected].

Volunteers put away the center’s tables and chairs after breakfast and replace them with cots from the church hall. Then, each morning before serving the meals, volunteers return the cots to the church hall and set up the tables and chairs.

“It’s a challenge,” Father Madden said, “but everybody is pitching in, including the guests.”

Father Madden said a significant number of guests come for breakfast and return at night for shelter.

St. John also has a shower trailer that was busy last summer, but it hasn’t been used in recent weeks because of the cold weather.

St. John’s Food for the Poor serves meals to homeless and low income people with donated food. Anyone who shows up is welcome. Each weekday from 6:30-9:30 a.m. about 15-30 volunteers serve more than 1,500 plates to more than 300 people. Some guests take extra plates to eat later in the day.

The food pantry offers donated food items for free from 7 a.m. each Saturday until whenever the food runs out, about 9 or 9:30 a.m. Roughly 250-300 families take part.
“Everybody to be housed and everybody to have enough food to eat, that’s what we all want, isn’t it?” Father Madden said.

“St. John’s has a long history of this,” Father Madden said. “I think the location and the community have a long, long history of helping people in need and this is a continuation of that.”

Miss Cutillo said guests who were worried about the approaching snowstorm broke into tears when they learned that they could find shelter at Worcester Tech.
“It was like sobbing tears,” she said, “exhaustion, relief, of just like, ‘Thank God, I have somewhere to go tonight and I’m not going to be stuck in the snow.’”

When the center began providing shelter, guests hugged the volunteers and thanked them. Miss Cutillo hopes that knowing they have a place to sleep at night will allow the guests to focus more on their jobs or getting treatment for their addictions or mental health problems.

“Having somewhere to consistently sleep is life changing for them,” Miss Cutillo said.
Some of the homeless sleep in tents in the woods. Others couch surf with people they know. Some cram into a one-bedroom apartment. The center provides a welcoming alternative.

The center has some devoted volunteers, including Susan and John Haffty, but more are needed, especially to stay with guests at night from 5-11 p.m. and from 11 p.m.-6 a.m. Volunteers don’t need to remain for an entire shift.

Mrs. O’Leary would like to see people working in social services, mental health counseling and behavioral health volunteer at the center to help guests rise above their homelessness.

To volunteer, call Father Madden at 508-756-7165 or register at signupgenius.com/go/60B0948ADA622A7FB6-62025468-stjohns#/.

Father Madden believes the volunteers get a lot of satisfaction helping others.
“They’re amazing,” he said. “It’s just hard to believe how they put out all this food every day and they do it joyfully. They enjoy each other, they enjoy being together, they enjoy doing it. It’s just really, really terrific. They come from all kinds of different places in life and different experiences in life, but it’s just the picture of a Christian community. It’s marvelous, it’s just remarkable.”