Ever since their Roseville apartment was destroyed by fire nine months ago, Marco and Imella Landeros have been on the move.

With nine children to care for, the Landeros found temporary housing with friends and relatives, but no one was able to house the family for more than a few weeks at a time.

Just as the chilly nights of November set in, the family, except for two of the youngest children, had to start spending nights in their van.

“It’s kind of warm, but the little ones are cold,” said Imella Landeros, whose feet have swollen so much from the cold and cramped sleeping arrangements she has taken to wearing slippers.

Then the Landeros heard the news that’s spreading through Roseville like a wildfire.

A bus was collecting people every night at St. Vincent de Paul Society and taking them to the warmth of area churches where they would find a hot meal and a place to spend the night.

“I was surprised churches would do this because there are a lot of us,” said Marco Landeros, who is trying to support his family working as a landscaper. “We didn’t have any answers. Now we’re thinking tomorrow will be a nice day. We have a church that is going to help us.”

What they have is the Gathering Inn, a group of 25 Placer County churches and hundreds of volunteers that are providing a nomadic homeless shelter to accommodate 50 homeless men, women and children throughout the winter months.

“We’re gathering people together to house them in a spiritual home, but we’ve really gathered the church together,” said Deacon Bill Boudier, president of the Gathering Inn and a member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Roseville. “It’s the most overwhelming thing I’ve ever done in my ministry.”

The Gathering Inn is a grassroots effort initiated by 30 church leaders, including Deacon Boudier, who met last January to address the growing homeless population of Placer County, which does not run a homeless shelter.

A survey done by Placer County in 2002 found there are 400 homeless in the area.

“We agreed that it was a shameful situation,” Deacon Boudier said. “It was something that the church had to set the example for the rest of the community,”

The Gathering Inn is modeled after a similar program in Solano County where nomadic shelters have provided emergency housing for the homeless for the past six years.

To raise community consciousness and fund the program, presentations were made to civic groups and social justice organizations such as the Social Justice Advocates of Placer County. During the crucial weeks of the fund-raising drive, the Gathering Inn received more than $45,000 in funding from Catholic parishes in Rocklin, Roseville and Auburn, and a donation of $1,000 from the Diocese of Sacramento.

Since the program was launched Nov. 15, the Gathering Inn bus has been shuttling the homeless from pickup locations in Auburn and Roseville to one of 14 host churches. Among the first host churches to volunteer was Saints Peter and Paul in Rocklin.

Denise Sewart, a parishioner of Saints Peter and Paul and co-founder of the Social Justice Advocates of Placer County, said there has been nothing but positive responses to the Gathering Inn from the church community. Sewart is one of the Gathering Inn’s lead organizers.

“It takes a huge amount of resources to make something like this happen,” said Sewart, who took the lead in networking with various ministries at her parish. She said staff and volunteers in virtually every ministry wanted to participate and the support of her pastor, Father Michael Dillon, “was immediate.”

Bettye Nippert, president of the women’s guild at Saints Peter and Paul, is coordinating the parish’s commitment to host 50 people every Thursday for 15 weeks. Nippert heads up site coordinators and teams of volunteers who not only graciously welcome guests but cook them a carefully-planned dinner. Ten minutes before dinner is served a non-religious message of hope is delivered.

The first night Saints Peter and Paul hosted the homeless program, 25 people were served by a dozen of the parish’s 100 Gathering Inn volunteers.

“Across the board awareness for people in need has been raised in our church,” said Darcy Wharton, a member of the parish’s coordinating council for the Gathering Inn. “We had planned to help 40 families for Thanksgiving and had enough food for 110 families.”

St. Rose of Lima Parish in Roseville is hosting the Gathering Inn for nine days during the Christmas season. Roger Bailey, who coordinates the program at St. Rose, said that 90 people from a broad spectrum of parish ministries from teens to seniors are dedicated to making their host nights something special.

“It’s important to bring people in out of the cold but also to treat them as true guests,” Bailey said.

While considerable thought is going into planning the menu for host nights at St. Rose, including Father Michael McKeon’s (pastor) “famous recipe for beef stew,” Bailey said providing “spiritual nourishment and hospitality” without proselytizing is the heart of the program.

Other parishes supporting the homeless shelter program through food contributions and financial support are St. Joseph Parish in Lincoln, St. Clare Parish in Roseville, and Saints Joseph and Teresa of Avila Parish in Auburn.

The Sisters of Mercy of the Auburn regional community will host the Gathering Inn on Christmas Eve.

Primary agencies making the Gathering Inn work are the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Roseville and the Salvation Army in Auburn, which provide health screening and needs assessment and offer guests an opportunity to take a shower and store their belongings.

The Rev. Charles Frost is pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in North Highlands and executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society in Roseville. During the past year he has worked at St. Vincent de Paul, Frost has watched hundreds of homeless men, women and children caught up in the struggle of life on the streets. He said their numbers are not only increasing, the homeless population is getting younger.

Frost said that one of the positive components of the Gathering Inn program is that case management counseling will be offered by agencies like St. Vincent de Paul to provide people with an opportunity to change their lifestyle.

“The idea is to work ourselves out of a job,” said Frost, who believes the most exciting aspect of the nomadic shelter is that it is uniting churches and non-profit organizations in one cause.

“We’ve crossed the boundaries of independence and the people are coming together as one voice and one effort,” he said. “I believe that’s the way the Lord intended it to be.”

Deacon Boudier, who is a member of the Placer Coalition on Homelessness, said the county’s 10-year plan includes building a permanent multi-service facility for the homeless.

“We want people to see that the Gathering Inn is not a threat to anybody,” he said. “Then the goal will be to provide a continuum of care and eradicate homelessness.”

Donations to support the Gathering Inn may be sent to: P. O. Box 584, Roseville, CA 95678. For more information call (916) 300-0482.

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