Share the Spirit: Winter Nights Family Shelter helps homeless get back on their feet
It was one thing after another. Lea Esqueda had two little mouths to feed, along with her aging mother, when she lost her job.
“It all happened so fast,” Esqueda said. “It’s kind of hard to look for a job when you’re trying to figure out where, you know, you’re going to live.” Knowing in her heart that her children and her mother deserved better, she called 211.“I owe them everything, we wouldn’t have survived without them,” Esqueda said.
More than that, the organization also offered her kids tutoring, rides to school, a sense of security and dignity. When her mother began needing dialysis, they drove her to appointments while Esqueda worked with a life coach to come up with a game plan and secure a job. The congregations brought food and shelter, while the organization of Winter Nights hired staff to provide supervision and services around the clock. Two years ago, Winter Nights spun off to become its own nonprofit organization.
Four years ago, Winter Nights kicked off its Safe Parking Program for individuals and families living in their cars. Rick Felix checks the last garbage can at the end of his shift after picking up trash and emptying cans at Slatten Ranch Shopping Center in Antioch, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Felix was a Safe Parking program client for two months. He found housing through his church and Winter Nights Family Shelter helped him to register his car, got four new tires in addition to $200 worth of gas cards, he said.
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