At Westview Presbyterian, music, laughter and the aroma of food filled the air as SafeLot hosted a BBQ celebrating two years of operation.
Joe Meggison, the manager at SafeLot explained that this BBQ offered him the opportunity to thank the organizations that partnered with SafeLot.
“This is for all of our people and the other organizations that have helped us get here, so it’s kind of like a thank you. We just wanted to do something for all of them since they do so much for us,” Meggison said.
Meggison invited 13 organizations with a couple people from each organization totalling around 40 participants, including board members from Longmont Food Rescue and board members from Homeless Outreach Providing Encouragement — HOPE.
Meggison hopes that this BBQ will get people excited for another year of helping homeless people in Longmont and saw this BBQ as a chance to further connect with the organization's partners.
“I want to amp everyone up for another year or two, but just bringing everybody together — a lot of the times we all email each other from different places, so we don’t really meet each other often. So every once in a while is nice,” Meggison said.
SafeLot is a program that allows homeless individuals with cars to sleep in a parking lot where they will not be ticketed. Also, SafeLot offers breakfast and dinner to the homeless people. Inside, there are bathrooms and a shower that are open for clients to use. SafeLot also offers basic hygiene products and laundry vouchers.
The ultimate goal is to get homeless people into permanent housing, so once a week clients meet with an employee to go over their progress.
“We don’t have a limit on how long they can stay, but we try to get them housed in five months. When I was a client it took me about five months,” Meggison said.
On average most clients are housed within three months, according to Meggison.
SafeLot can manage about 35 clients at a time, and they are open 365 days a year.
This year Meggison has noticed an influx of individuals who are losing their homes. Meggison said SafeLot is doing everything in its power to help those who are experiencing homelessness.
“A lot of our people are getting ticketed by cops for having to park somewhere. I think we are keeping a lot of people off the streets off and out of private property areas and we are trying to keep up with the inflow of people losing their places, but we can only do so much,” Meggison said.
