We are a group of community and faith leaders who have come together to fill a gap in emergency shelters in WNC. We specialize in keeping families facing homelessness together and providing a safe space for People of Color and LGBTQ+.

Most shelters operate as men’s and women’s dormitories, so a husband and wife and children must split up in order to receive shelter. This is also typically the case for a single mother and son if her son is over 13 years of age. There are also few options for single fathers.

Safe Shelter allows families to shelter together and give space to those who have had challenges in larger shelters. Much of our motivation comes from the past success of the 2023-2023 Winter Safe Shelter, Trinity United Methodist Church’s (UMC) emergency shelter during the 2021-2022 winter season and the Room at the Inn program that ran for many years prior to COVID.

The Shelter will be housed at AHOPE downtown for 6 months and then rotate to different host locations while we look for a permanent location.

Guests can enter the shelter by referral only. We will work with any service agencies or shelter to accept referrals. We hope to connect the shelter guests to more permanent housing by linking them to peer support staff, volunteers, and other resources.

We welcome volunteers and meal donations.

We are grateful for the wealth of experience in our community from those who have been serving our unhoused neighbors for years. We partner and work closely with 12 Baskets; ABCCM; BeLoved; Equal Plates; Homeward Bound; Haywood Street Respite, Helpmate; the Rescue Mission, Salvation Army; Umoja Health, Wellness and Justice Collective; the Veteran’s Administration, and other community providers.

Our trained Peer Support staff, Community Health Workers or Core Team members are on-site at all times the shelter is open.

We work with Community Paramedics to address health needs.

We welcome volunteers from all walks.

Counterflow LLC is supporting this initiative with experience specific to last winter’s effort of participatory program design, leadership meeting facilitation, operations management and policy development, volunteer coordination and appreciation support, recruiting, training, and hiring staff, and empowerment evaluation/reporting.

This model of sheltering poses the opportunity for healing across our community, amongst churches, between those who are housed and unhoused, and spiritual and secular spaces.

Use the “Referral” button on our webpage to make a referral.