Concord’s winter homeless shelter opens this week at St. Peter’s Church, and some wary neighbors will be on their guard.
Without the city’s traditional winter shelters at First and South Congregational churches, the city struck a last-minute deal to host 60 beds for the homeless at the North State Street church this season. The Friends Program, which signed on the manage the shelter, will open its doors on Tuesday night.
At a recent meeting hosted by the non-profit for interested volunteers, more than 200 people crammed into St. Peter’s Church to sign up and help.
But also in the audience were a number of residents of the surrounding neighborhood, who said they came to the volunteer meeting because there had been no other public forum for them to ask questions about security or other concerns.
The Concord City Council held a public hearing during its December meeting, when it voted to contribute $30,000 of surplus money to the shelter’s operating costs, but no neighbors came to testify that night.
Source: Virtual News Center
