100+ Men Who Care helps new winter shelter effort

CEDAR RAPIDS - Local architect Dave Sorg's own cold-night good Samaritan encounter a year ago with a homeless grandmother and her two grandkids helped mobilize the city, county and local helping services agencies to make more shelter beds available for this winter's worst nights.

Sorg now has persuaded a group of which he is a member, 100+ Men Who Care, to direct its quarterly giving to the newly created Community Overflow Weather Shelter System.

Each of the 100+ Men's members agrees to donate $100 to a particular project each quarter. Sorg, chairman of the group's board, said Monday the group's donation to the overflow shelter should total about $15,000.

Phoebe Trepp, executive director of the Willis Dady Emergency Shelter and a member of the overflow shelter planning group, called the 100+ Men's donation 'super exciting.”

Trepp said the donation exceeds the overflow shelter's bare-bones $14,000 wintertime budget and may allow the effort to open overflow beds for more than the up to 60 days planned earlier.

On any given night, the community's shelter system has about 100 overnight beds, but on the year's coldest nights more homeless beds are needed.

The overflow system will be able to add 12 to 18 beds to existing shelters and 27 to 33 beds at an overflow center.

The system is triggered when the wind-chill measurement reaches a 'danger” point of cold temperatures beneath a certain degree. For instance, a temperature of 20 degrees with a wind speed of 5 mph is not considered a danger in the wind-chill chart now in place.

Trepp said the extra money provided by the 100+ Men may help the shelter planning group to modify the danger standard. As is, the standard already has been reached twice this cold-weather season, she said.

Sorg, a principal at OPN Architects Inc., said the overflow shelter idea is a 'great example” of the county, city and non-profit agencies joining forces to address a critical community need.

He said the 100+ Men heard his personal story of helping a grandmother and grandkids last winter and the group wanted to do what it could to help this winter.

'We have a good shelter system in place, but when the shelters are full, there (have been) no options regardless of the temperature extremes and whether you have young children,” Sorg said.

Now there are options.

Earlier, the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation and Linn County together have contributed about $5,800 to the overflow shelter program.

Trepp said the overflow shelter program still is looking for volunteers for nights when the temperatures plummet and the overflow shelter system opens. Interested volunteers can call (319) 362-7555.