UPDATE!! (August 6, 2015)

We welcomed our 3rd guest about a week ago and are about to welcome our 4th guest with the One Starfish Program.  We are thrilled to be able to help with their progress towards getting off the street.  We have encountered a few issues as we learn the ins and outs of this program.  One being that the word is out and we from time to time have unpermitted cars spending the night along with our permitted guest.  Our hope is that we can get these other guest connected to the One Starfish Program and find legal and permitted places to sleep at night.  There are new things to learn each day, God guides us in this project.

 

July 6, 2015

In mid June we welcomed our first guest with the One Starfish Program, a mother with a young son.  We are thrilled to share that within 2 weeks of arriving and working with the program's social workers, she is now off the street and no longer sleeping with her young son in her car.  

 

Soon after the first guest arrived we welcomed our second guest, an older single woman who has been living on the streets in her vehicle for quite a while.  

We are excitedly anticipating being a vital part of her success story too as it unfolds in the days and weeks to come as she works with the One Starfish Program.

 

We are excited to share our big news!

In the last several months we have been working with a ministry program called One Starfish Safe Parking & Support Service Program (through Pass the Word Ministry) and the City of Pacific Grove to make it possible to provide legal safe parking for a limited number of homeless women (who have cars) in our church parking lot.

 

Through this process the Pacific Grove City Council has approved an ordinance allowing a 12 month pilot parking lot program within the city, with a specific permitting process.  We have now completed that process and this morning (May 28, 2015) have received our official permit making us the first organization in PG to initiate the Safe Sleeping Parking Lot Program. 

 

Our parking lot will be open to five homeless women who have been accepted into the One Starfish program, giving them permission to park their cars and sleep in our parking lot at night. The goal of the program is to provide these women a safe place to sleep at night as they work with One Starfish to better their living situation and get off the street.

 

There are still details to see to before we can welcome our first new friend onto our campus but the large hurdles are past and we anticipate moving forward and being up and running in the very near future.

 

We believe that God has entrusted us with this property to be used in ministry to serve in Christ’s name within our community.  We move forward with this program as an act of our Christian faith, as we strive to live out our Mission Statement,  “Loving God,  Growing Faith and Serving Community.”