By Theresa-Marie Wilson ~
Photos by www.PhotoByVivian.com
It isn’t often that several hundred people get together to have lunch, but it has become a tradition for a good cause for many local folks.
About 600 tickets were sold for the 5Cities Homeless Coalition’s 4th Annual Empty Bowl Community Luncheon held last week at St. Patrick’s Church Parish Hall in Arroyo Grande.
“We hope this event brings continued awareness that homelessness is a problem that can’t be solved by one individual group,” said Pismo Beach Mayor Shelly Higginbotham who serves has the 5CHC board president.
[pullquote align=”full” cite=”Pismo Beach Mayor Shelly Higginbotham” link=”” color=”#0066FF” class=”” size=””]“It is going to take all of working together to solve the problems here in the South County.”[/pullquote]For $25 attendees received a handcrafted ceramic bowl made by area artists that was then filled with their choice of soups and bread donated by the local restaurants. City dignitaries, law enforcement officials and other well-known community leaders ladled out soup.
“This is one of those great events that brings everybody together in the community,” said 3rd District Supervisor Adam Hill who was on deck serving Italian Wedding soup from CJ’s Cafe.
When the Coalition was first formed, the goal was to create an expansive one-stop day use multi-faceted center to serve the homeless population. Finding a facility that was affordable, met size needs and was welcomed by residents in the neighboring community proved to be more difficult than anticipated.
“We worked really hard to find a permanent location for the center as it was envisioned,” said 5CHC Executive Director Janna Nichols. “While doing that, we developed, what I call, our virtual center that provides a variety of services. We have recognized that people in the community were not ready for what we had envisioned. They didn’t know us. We didn’t have a track record. We had a lot of great ideas, but we hadn’t proven ourselves yet.”
That vision has been scaled back for now and 5CHC is working towards a smaller space where clients can meet with people on a one-on-one basis.
“The core of what we need right now is the ability to bring clients together, a place to bring service providers, a private meeting space to have case management meetings, and an administrative office,” Nichols said. “We would like to co-locate as many services as possible. We are still very much in the service of information referral. When you are living in crisis, it is really hard to look past today. We can create a space that gives people an opportunity to pause, to make a plan with us, and give them some tools to do that with. We are providing services on a one-one-one basis.”
In addition to the referrals and case management, the 5CHC arranges for funding to meet immediate personal and/or housing needs such as bus passes, gas vouchers, utilities, auto repairs, clothing, employment readiness, basic needs, and emergency food.
“Ultimately, we are trying to get people into housing, and, obviously, that is very difficult in this area,” Nichols said. “If there was a way to develop housing co-located with some service space, that would be ideal. We are not looking at overnight housing at this point, but rather more permanent housing or transitional housing.”
Working in conjunction with other organizations, the 5CHC has helped permanently house more than 50 families this year that had been homeless.
“It has been really tough in this housing market,” Nichols said.
Through ticket sales and donations, the event raised about $28,000 in support of the 5CHC’s efforts to self-sufficiency
For more information, visit www.5chc.org.
