Men's Overnight Emergency Shelter
Since March 31, 2003 the Riverdale Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture, in partnership with Congregation Tehillah and the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (HIR), has faithfully operated an emergency overnight shelter for six homeless men. Our shelter operates on Monday nights only.
Homeless individuals seeking help are able to get services in New York City by going to a drop in center. One drop in center exists in the Bronx. It is called the Living Room/Safe Haven. At a drop in center individuals are able to receive social, health and medical services. Included in the social services is finding affordable permanent housing.
The Living Room, operated by Bronx Works (http://bronxworks.org/), has a list of available beds on any given night. They fill those beds with individuals in their care who are not exhibiting any negative behavior from alcohol, drugs, or mental illness and are demonstrating good personal hygiene.
In addition, BronxWorks provides transportation to and from the Living Room/Safe Haven, clean linens for each night that we operate and are in the process of providing staples such as coffee, juice and other imperishable food items which is served to our guests.
Meals donated by members of our community are also provided. If you are interested in providing a meal, you will find the dates available at Take Them a Meal (Click here to donate).
Volunteers are always welcome to set up beds, serve the meal, clean up after the meal and provide camaraderie to our guests. If you are interested in volunteering in this capacity, please call 718-548-4455 or contact our office manager at office@rysec.org .
I have always felt that this service is the ultimate expression of Ethical Humanism and what we all should be doing. The highest level of volunteering is giving up you bed for one night to spend the night at the Society ensuring that our guests do not need any special attention. We have never had an incident during our eight years of operations and spending the night is an extremely rewarding experience. If you are interested in volunteering in this capacity you can sign up online at MySignUp.com (Click here to sign up).
Each semester we also get volunteers from our neighbor Manhattan College. They have been very helpful with bed set up, providing meals, cleanup up after meal service and welcoming our guests.
I would like to express our gratitude for all of those who have volunteered in any capacity over the year and contributed to making this program a wonderful success. Keep up the good work. As of this writing we have operated 441 Monday nights, and served 425 different individuals.
In addition, volunteers have provided music for our guests including professional musicians from the group Spuyten Duyvil http://www.spuytenduyvilmusic.com/ and MUSICFORTHELOVE by Wally Levis and Curt Kendrick- email - musicforthelove@yahoo.com.