Disciple: Helping Women Who Don’t Have Anyone
How St. Timothy’s, Winston-Salem took on hosting the city’s women’s overflow shelter
By Summerlee Walter
“We’re providing radical hospitality.”
According to director Kristen Machado, that’s the bottom line at Our Lady of Salem Shelter for Women, or as it is more colloquially known in the Winston-Salem community, the Shelter at St. Timothy’s. This winter, the low-barrier shelter will host up to 20 unhoused women in the parish hall from dinner time until 6 a.m. the next morning, seven days per week, from December 1 through February 28. Unlike most other shelter programs, the Shelter at St. Timothy’s does not turn away women for drug or alcohol use or mental health needs. Only violence will result in staff asking a guest to leave, and even then she is invited to return the next evening.
“These are maybe people who have been forgotten, but Jesus never forgets those people, so we won’t either,” Machado explains. “Our guests are at the very, very bottom, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve love and care.”
While staying at St. Timothy’s, women are treated as members of the community, not charity cases. The volunteers who provide a hot dinner each night are encouraged to sit and eat with the guests, something they come to enjoy. The congregation’s commitment to their unhoused neighbors is even reflected in St. Timothy’s shield, which features a blanket.
“To be a volunteer at St. Timothy’s you absolutely must be comfortable with all kinds of folks.” Machado said. “You must be kind and empathetic and loving. That is of the utmost importance, to me and to the people of St. Timothy’s and to all of our guests.”
A SAFE PLACE TO SLEEP
Twelve years ago, Katie Bryant, a Methodist pastor, was serving as the children’s minister at St. Timothy’s. She was very involved with ministry to unhoused people, and when during the winter cold a group of Winston-Salem churches decided to provide overflow shelter for people sleeping outside, she volunteered St. Timothy’s as the site of the women’s shelter. (Other churches agreed to host the men.)
Bryant reached out to her friend and St. Timothy’s parishioner Machado for help. Machado agreed, eventually becoming Bryant’s assistant and ultimately taking over as director of the shelter when Bryant took a job at a different church five years ago.
“In the beginning, the emergency overflow shelter response was churches working together without an official structure and with no financial backing,” the Rev. Steve Rice, rector of St. Timothy’s, explained. “It was all volunteer labor—including the overnight monitors. During that first year, the St. Timothy’s staff and parishioners would take a night to be an overnight monitor, reflecting the radical risk the parish assumed and the extraordinary commitment of the parishioners. Since that first season, 12 years ago, we have essentially sacrificed our parish hall for the shelter and have redirected resources and priorities to this work of mercy. We have long been guided by the words of Frank Weston, the Anglo-Catholic bishop of Zanzibar in the 1920s, ‘You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.’”
Over time, the shelter program began receiving financial and logistical backing from City with Dwellings, a Winston-Salem nonprofit working with unhoused people. Each winter from December 1 through March 31, St. Timothy’s provided a warm, safe place to sleep; volunteers to make hot dinners and welcome guests; pajamas and toiletries; and bagged lunches for guests to take with them the next day. Guests heard about the shelter at the bus station, in the library or through friends. They arrived at City with Dwellings by 6 p.m. for check-in and transportation to St. Timothy’s.
At the church, Machado checked in everyone and gave them each a bin in which to store their belongings safely overnight, and guests made their beds using sleeping mats and linens provided by the church. After dinner, guests usually went to bed early, with lights out by 8:30 or 9 p.m. They left the church at 6 a.m. the next morning.
If something did happen overnight, the church often relied on assistance from one of the officers who frequent the 24-hour police chapel that St. Timothy’s hosts. When called upon, the officers responded empathetically to the guests, who were usually experiencing an acute crisis of some sort, to keep everyone safe.
[Image: The Rev. Steve Rice blesses a safe, warm place to sleep.]
A NEW MODEL
After years of partnering with churches to provide winter overflow shelter, in 2022 City with Dwellings shifted its focus to creating long-term supportive housing solutions to address the root causes of homelessness. This new focus ended the organization’s financial support for the church-based winter shelter program, which included payroll for the two overnight monitors, insurance costs, and transportation to and from the church each day. While St. Timothy’s remains dedicated to supporting City with Dwellings financially and with volunteers, the change did mean the church needed to pivot quickly.
The church was not prepared to set up its own independent overflow shelter in the time between when the change was announced and the start of the overflow shelter season, but Machado had an idea for Saturdays at St. Timothy’s. Twice per month, she and a group of volunteers hosted women at the church for 24 hours. Guests ate three hot meals, watched Hallmark movies, played board games, made crafts, danced, enjoyed the church’s beautiful campus and had a warm place to sleep. The church turned up the thermostat and provided comfy pajamas that guests could take with them when they left. It was a chance for the women to relax, a rarity in their dangerous, stressful lives.
“The women loved it, but then they were crying to me that they have no place to go, and it was really tragic,” Machado said. “For 12 years they’ve been counting on us, and they’re the most vulnerable, and all of a sudden we’re not there. It was just awful. So we cannot do that again. We have got to stay open so these folks have a place to stay every night during the winter.”
Once the church made it through the first season without City with Dwellings, Rice approached Machado and asked her if she would be willing to run a nightly overflow shelter at the church during the 2024-25 season. Machado said yes, and with the support and prayers of Rice and the congregation, she started making plans to return to the shelter’s roots.
One of her first tasks was building a board to support the shelter. Garnering support for the ministry is another important task, one that occupies a lot of Machado’s time. Among many other expenses, St. Timothy’s has taken over paying a living wage to the overnight monitors, many of whom have previously experienced homelessness. Knollwood Baptist Church and Highland Presbyterian Church have both made significant donations, and Highland also has been a long-time partner in providing shelter volunteers. This winter, The Dwelling, a downtown Lutheran-Moravian church that ministers with low-income and unhoused people, will provide check-in to guests at a downtown location and transport them to St. Timothy’s. The Junior League, Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts have supported the ministry in the past, and Machado looks forward to welcoming them back. Of course, there are also the dozens of volunteers from within the Timothy’s congregation who make the shelter happen every winter.
To help with the additional fundraising needs, Machado is in the process of applying for 501(c)3 status, something many granting agencies require. Another barrier to fundraising for the shelter is organizations that require applicants to demonstrate long-term positive outcomes, something that is difficult to measure in short-term shelter setting, even though the ministry literally saves lives by providing a safe place to sleep when overnight temperatures drop dangerously low. The church still needs support from individual donors and community partners.
“People experiencing homelessness may look scary or appear different, but they’re really, really just people,” Machado said. “When you offer them an excellent dinner, a smile when they walk in, their whole visage changes. They’ve been treated all day like they’re unwanted.
“I don’t have all the answers. I just know how to help the people in our community who really don’t have anyone else.”
SERVING THE UNHOUSED
If your church would like to get started with ministry to the unhoused, it’s important to partner with the organizations in your community already doing the work. If you’d like to support Our Lady of Salem Shelter for Women, you can do so at sttimothysws.org/homeless-shelter.
Summerlee Walter is the communications coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina.
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