A BENDIGO shelter is searching for volunteers under 70, so it can provide shelter to people experiencing homelessness this winter.
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Bendigo Winter Night Shelter hopes to offer accommodation and meals to people sleeping rough despite Victoria's physical distancing regulations.
Critical for the program to run will be finding enough volunteers under 70, the age at which people enter a higher risk category for COVID-19.
The shelter may host guests in motels, as gathering bans have closed churches.
Fourteen churches opened their doors in 2019 to offer shelter to those experiencing homelessness as part of the Bendigo Winter Night Shelter.
Bans on gathering to slow the spread of COVID-19 mean they will be unable to run the program in the same format during the 2020 winter.
BWNS chair Terry Westaway said the committee expected a drop in volunteer numbers for the 2020 program.
More than 250 people volunteered in 2019, but Mr Westaway said these volunteers tended to be older.
Mr Westaway said the program needed to find people under 70, as the government was telling anyone above that age to stay home.
Other middle-aged volunteers might not want to put frail, older parents under their care at risk, he said.
Mr Westaway said BWNS was exploring a few ways it could offer shelter to those who need it in, line with physical distancing regulations.
He said churches had been closed, but there was a chance the shelter could use adjoining halls.
But the shelter might instead reach an arrangement with Bendigo accommodation providers to house guests, Mr Westaway said.
Winter Night Shelter volunteers would then be able to take pre-packed food to guests, he said.
Mr Westaway said pastoral care would take the form of conversations on Facetime or phone calls.
Mr Westaway said after seeing the benefits in 2019, the shelter was keen to run the program again this winter.
One in three of the guests at last year's program are now in more stable accommodation.
"We believe that it's a valuable work, because it definitely offers the opportunity for people to chart a better course, to get their life on track, in a more normal living style," he said.
"There was a great response from the community. The churches and the community at large.
"People obviously believe that it was a good work, very worthwhile. We 'd rather not have an absolute gap in 2020. We'd like to have some continuity there."
Mr Westaway encouraged anyone touched by the issue of homelessness to respond in whatever way they could to help, church-goer or not.
More information at: bendigowinternightshelter.com/
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