Eugene, Oregon has about 432 homeless people for every 100,000 housed people, making it the city with the highest volume of homeless people per capita (Security.org, 2019.) Saint Vincent de Paul has been an advocate in the effort to aid people experiencing homelessness. Recently, SVdP teamed up with PeaceHealth hospitals to provide extended care for recently discharged patients experiencing homelessness.
Since 1953, SVdP has been working to connect unhoused people to resources that aid their goals of living comfortably, providing shelter, food, running water, clean laundry and opportunities to achieve stability. These resources are predominantly offered at their Eugene Service Station, which also hosts the Dusk-to-Dawn shelter site.
SVdP’s Dusk-to-Dawn provides heated military-style tents with cots that serve as an overnight shelter. Before COVID-19 restrictions, Dusk-to-Dawn was able to host 240 citizens a night. Dusk-to-Dawn currently has a maximum capacity of 125 guests but still makes the effort to serve as many people as possible with their daytime amenities offered at the Service Station.
The collaboration between SVdP and PeaceHealth Hospitals of Eugene will be adding to the diversity of SVdP’s services. Five individual Pallet Shelters have been added to the Dusk-to-Dawn site and began operating January 18. These serve as an interim shelter for discharged homeless inpatients from PeaceHealth hospitals. This is currently operating as a 90-day trial pilot.
Pallets are individual heated military-style tents, each with its own cot and a large bin for personal storage. The pallets allocated for use by discharged PeaceHealth patients will be occupiable for about a week after their discharge, from there they can move to the main site tents if they choose. Supervisors from Eugene Service Center will help outpatients coordinate follow-up appointments with PeaceHealth.
“As long as you return each night, you can stay at Dusk-to-Dawn the rest of your life if you want to. We’re hoping to use the pallet program as a six-week-to-three-month program meant to transition people. We’re working with people on a trajectory to being stable, to help them build funds, build rental history, and ultimately to help them find stable housing,” said Terry McDonald, executive director of SVdP of Lane County.
