BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) — The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is preparing to expand its bed capacity to serve the homeless men, women, children, and families, for the freezing temperatures.
St. Vincent de Paul’s Bishop Ott Shelter Program continues its plan for the upcoming cold nights. We will expand bed capacity and anticipate serving homeless men, women, children and families for the cold nights to come.
Annually, we provide day and night shelter services to over 1,000 men, women and children, and provided over 20,000 guest nights of shelter. We are prepared to accommodate homeless men, women, children, and families in need of shelter during this cold weather. We are also preparing for freezing temperatures this coming week.
As a community leading homeless services provider, our shelter program operates four night shelter
programs (with a 125 bed capacity with COVID-19 restrictions) and one homeless day center. We
currently operate two emergency shelters for men, one for homeless women and children, and one for
families and children. We expect to fill all beds and will make room for emergency cases, as we can
following COVID-19 safety measures.
In addition to providing shelter, our programs offer services to help individuals break the cycle of
homelessness and become self-sufficient. Our programs have a good record of helping the homeless obtain employment, affordable housing and other things necessary to become self-sufficient.
Cold temperatures always put extra stress on the limited resources and volunteers of our small non-profit.
Individuals interested in assisting the homeless can do so by supporting current shelter needs. Financial contributions can be made to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at P.O. Box 127, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0127 or on-line at www.svdpbr.org.