BY PRISCILLA GREEAR

Staff Writer

DORAVILLE--The St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVDP) held a simple bilingual ceremony March 31 to recognize volunteers and the homeless men they served at the Society's first winter shelter in Georgia.

The temporary shelter, located in the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Americas Mission in Doraville, served a diversity of men, Hispanic and Anglo, for four months before closing April 1.

SVDP seeks donations and has formed a shelter committee to find a site to lease for a permanent archdiocesan shelter.

At the temporary shelter, 150 volunteers, some bilingual, from churches, Morehouse College, SVDP conferences and civic groups, served 3,600 homeless people.

Since the Society provides temporary aid to help people achieve self-sufficiency, shelter residents were required to have a plan to find alternative housing and become financially self-reliant. They could stay for a maximum of 30 nights at the shelter, where they also received a shower, an evening meal of soup and bread and coffee and a roll for breakfast.

Words of thanks in English and Spanish were expressed at the ceremony to the approximately 75 volunteers and residents seated at shelter tables. Welcoming remarks were given by Brian Lynch, SVDP director of shelters, and Roddy Padilla, SVDP mission conference president. Betty Clermont, team leader for the shelter, and Hipolito Garcia, guest coordinator, read the Scriptures.

Father Carlos Garcia-Carreras, SJ, chaplain of Our Lady of the Americas, thanked God for the opportunity volunteers had to serve the homeless, but emphasized the need for them to promote self-sufficiency.

"My main concern is the time from now on...This has been a beautiful experience. The main problem is what can we do to help people to not need shelters. That is my main concern. What else can I do this year to make them stand by themselves? " he said later.

The Doraville mission offers Mercy Mobile Health Care services, English classes and other assistance.

"They are all free services, but they are also services that create dependency," the chaplain said. "If you can pay, you should pay. There's a lot of services here that create dependency and that's what I'm scared of."

He said he plans to require those receiving services to attend support groups where they would review their expenses and explore together how to manage them.

Sheila Bissonnette, executive director of SVDP, said, "There has been a time for the SVDP shelter. The longer I spend in ministry I believe you don't do big things, you do small things. We've touched the lives not of homeless men but of men at this time in their lives who are homeless."

"What we're trying to do is to change lives one at a time. In working with one person at a time we build relationships. That's what's been happening here," affirmed Sister Mary Kay Finneran, SVDP education and training coordinator.

Shelter resident Jessee Johnson, who was homeless for three months and struggled with drug addiction, said, "I have a place to stay now, but I wanted to come up here and spend a night with these people. Everybody here has been so nice. They really care about what happens to us... It just gives you a good feeling."

"We're just all trying to make it. Most of us are addicts or alcoholics. Some of us are just down and out," he later added. At other shelters "everybody else was kind of cold and robot-like...This group tries to talk to people, get them motivated and back on the right track," he said.

He hopes the SVDP shelter relocates in the Doraville area where "you don't have the hustle and bustle of downtown. It's peaceful. You can get a good night's rest."

The Chamblee/Doraville area lacks shelters and Bissonnette hopes to find a permanent site there, but said the Society is looking throughout the archdiocese. Father Garcia-Carreras said there is a strong need for an area shelter and that the Doraville MARTA station has 30 to 40 men, occasionally with families, sleeping under train tracks. The SVDP temporary shelter attracted newly arriving immigrants as well as homeless men from downtown Atlanta and other areas, he said.

In the prayer service, shelter lights were dimmed and Marta Gonzalez, guest coordinator, followed by other attendees, lit a candle and said, "When I light a candle I see the Christ. I see the light...We are also sharing the light with each other, the light for each other. Let all of us light the candle for one another."

Musicians from the mission led bilingual versions of "Lord, You Have Come," and "Let There Be Peace on Earth" as people joined hands. Closing remarks were made by Alan Urech, SVDP council president, and then a potluck dinner prepared by volunteers was served.

Volunteer coordinator Lynn Berlon said she had had difficulty finding workers to spend week nights at the shelter and that retired seniors from parishes and young adults, particularly those with "Theology on Tap" and Morehouse, were helpful by offering to work then.

Bissonnette said that "the purpose of the celebration is simply to acknowledge that people cared and that something was done. People's lives were touched because (of) the volunteers, the donors, the guests that spent the night, and we're marking it."

The Atlanta Task Force reported that in Atlanta in 1997 there were 25,000 homeless children and approximately 47,000 people experienced homelessness.

To join the SVDP shelter committee or make a donation to the ministry, call Bissonnette at (404) 874-7140.