MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – All week homeless shelters across Michigan have been filling up; taking in more people than usual because of the snow and frigid temperatures.
MCREST (Macomb County Rotating Emergency Shelter Team) is taking in as many people as they can, but they are hoping you can help them maintain that.
“Help us help the people that don’t have a stable place to stay during these winter months, so they don’t die out on the street,” said MCREST executive director April Fidler.
It’s a mission with a harsh reality.
MCREST has a new women and children shelter in Mount Clemens and rotates the men’s shelter from church to church. They are working to open a new men’s shelter that has dog kennels, so people don’t have to give up their pets when staying at the shelter.
“It goes relatively smoothly when the weather’s not so inclement as it is right now,” said John Johnson, MCREST Board of Directors president. “But then we encountered this kind of weather for long-standing very, very cold, which makes it difficult.”
There’s an urgent need to shelter more people.
“When we don’t have a facility to host our man we use the hotel,” Fidler said.
MCREST is using hotel rooms to expand their capacity.
“We’re in a fundraising mode right now to help augment our budget, that money really isn’t there for,” Johnson said.
They put the call out for help on Thursday, Jan. 18, and in just a few days have raised $15,000.
“We know winter is January to maybe March 1, maybe April, who knows, but if we can generate more than $20,000 that would be awesome,” said Fidler. “It is $50 a room a night, per person. We could put two people in a room, that will cover about $2,800 a month for two people.”
“The way I kind of see this whole thing with homelessness, it’s never ever going to be totally solved but we can do better as a people,” Johnson said. “So we want folks to know that we’re out here, we’re trying to make a difference and we can use everybody’s help.”