It’s 4 a.m. and I’m sitting in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church listening to the tranquil sound of nearly two dozen homeless men and women sleeping peacefully. Their rest is my reward.

Last year around this time, I wrote an opinion piece asking why the City of Evanston did not provide shelter to homeless community members during extreme cold.

No one had a good answer.

So this year, the City of Evanston, Connections for the Homeless and Interfaith Action of Evanston teamed up to provide cold emergency sheltering when the temperature is expected to drop below zero.

And here, early Wednesday morning, with colder temperatures on their way, I realize how fortunate it is that someone agreed with me. Nancy Flowers and Tom Janetske at the city said yes. Sue Murphy with Interfaith Action of Evanston said let’s do it. St. Paul’s said “of course.” And Beth Emet Synagogue agreed to be the backup.

But I’ve never been one to enjoy life’s small successes for long. The truth is that this community can do even better. This shelter needs to be open when we expect a low of 5-degrees or 10-degrees, not just a low of zero. It needs to be funded with money that can provide for staff and offset costs to the church.

And it needs to have more community support. It needs to have community members who write checks, write letters or just talk about this project with other people. It needs people who contact Kevin Rak, volunteer coordinator at Connections for the Homeless, [email protected], and say I can set up a cot, say I can play chess at 2 a.m. and say I can sit and listen and remember what it means to be thankful.

So as emergency shelters close nationwide and are not replaced by enough housing to meet everyone’s needs, the Evanston community needs to respond and say, no one sleeps in the cold here. And I am proud to say that 19 people didn’t tonight.

-DAVID WENGERTCase Manager, Connections for the HomelessWeinberg ’05