UCAN, church team up on warming center

ROSEBURG, Ore. – United Community Action Network will team up with St. Joseph Catholic Church to provide an overnight warming center during severe weather this winter – and a call will soon go out for volunteers.

UCAN, a local poverty-fighting agency, has received funding to operate a warming center and now plans to run the center on an as-needed basis in the church gymnasium after UCAN Executive Director Shaun Pritchard and Roseburg City Manager Nikki Messenger met Wednesday, Nov. 29, with Father José Manuel Campos Garcia and St. Joseph Parish staff.

“I’m pleased to share that UCAN and Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Roseburg will soon be formalizing an agreement for use of the Church’s gymnasium for a warming center,” Pritchard wrote Thursday, Nov. 30, in an email announcing the news. “We are excited about the possibility of this being a long-term relationship to address the needs of our community.”

Pritchard thanked Elaine Rodriguez, founder of the Latinx women’s group Mano Amiga in Roseburg, for connecting UCAN with the church located at 800 W. Stanton St. Pritchard also thanked everyone who has assisted the effort this fall to track down other sites as possible locations for the warming center. Messenger applauded the new partnership.

“We’re so appreciative of UCAN and St. Joseph’s willingness to partner to help protect our most vulnerable this winter,” Messenger said Thursday. “We’re hoping this will be an ongoing, multi-year thing and that we won’t have to be scrambling for a location again next year.”

UCAN and community partners will create a warming center operations plan that will include volunteer opportunities. UCAN runs the City’s first low-barrier emergency shelter and navigation center, the Gary Leif Navigation Center, and its 30-bed group shelter, 10 pallet shelters and wraparound services to help resident and walk-in clients become more self-sufficient. UCAN is also working on a Grants Pass warming center effort. UCAN oversees programs offering emergency rental and utility assistance, Head Start, WIC, Feeding Umpqua and more than 20 additional programs.

“I’m proud of our staff here at UCAN and I’m proud of the partnerships that we have built with all of you in our communities -- replacing suffering and despair with comfort and hope,” Pritchard said in the email.

The City’s Severe Event Shelter Policy provides operational standards for organizations seeking City approval to open a temporary emergency shelter in buildings not designated as residential occupancy. Those standards include allowing a warming shelter to open during severe weather on nights when low temperatures are predicted to be 30 degrees Fahrenheit or less, or when lows are predicted at 32 degrees Fahrenheit or less with other factors increasing risk of cold exposure such as precipitation, wind, fog and sustained low temperatures. 

The Roseburg Rescue Mission offers overnight shelter at 752 SE Pine St. all year.