Woodland Park church proposing emergency shelter

The Woodland Park City Council will decide this week whether volunteers of a Woodland Park church can open a temporary emergency shelter in town.

Jackson Peters, of Woodland Park Community Church, is behind the effort. He said the target group is families, especially single parents. The shelter would allow up to six people to stay in a motel-style room for up to seven days.

“We hope that we can show these people some love and some caring and make their journey a little safer a little more comfortable,” he said. “We also will be focusing on victims of domestic violence.”

Peters said there currently isn’t a service like this in Woodland Park. The church’s Storehouse Ministries offers people who need emergency housing a two-day stay at a local motel. He said this will help expand their services.

“We’re not just going to provide shelter, we’re also going to be providing advocates to work with them, help them access resources, talk about their problems have somebody to talk to if nothing else, and help them move along to hopefully a better place,” Peters said.

Peters said the shelter will be “virtually invisible” to the rest of the community.

“That person and that family will not be left alone,” he said. “There will be teams from our church that will work with those families, there will not be people hanging out.”

KRDO NEWSCHANNEL 13 isn’t revealing the location of the shelter for the protection of future occupants.

Peters expects to help about 40 families in the shelter’s first year of operation.

City Council will have a second reading and public hearing on the shelter at its meeting Thursday night.