Moscow, December 1, 2014
The “Miloserdie” Orthodox aid service has opened a heated tent for the homeless to stay during the day. On the territory of the tent homeless people will be able not only to wash themselves in shower cubicles, to eat, to change their clothes and shoes, but will also have a real opportunity to change their life.
“This year ‘the Hangar of Salvation’ will work not like last year,” related Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, confessor of the “Miloserdie” service, at a briefing on December 1. “The tent will work not as a shelter for the night, but as a center for rendering social aid to people who need it”.
The main task of the project is to further the return of homeless people to society. A social worker in the tent will assist homeless residents in restoring identity documents, forging links with their relatives, searching for temporary shelter and jobs, getting to their homes. On the territory of the Hangar for the homeless a free public telephone will be available round-the-clock for making calls all over Russia: the homeless will be able to contact their relatives or search for employment using this telephone.
Any person in a critical situation and with no roof above his or her head can get into the tent regardless of his or her documents availability and place of registration.
“The Hangar of Salvation” will work on week-days from 9.00 to 18.00 at the address: Nikoloyamskaya Street, outside house no. 55.
This winter will be the second season for the tent on the territory of the Synodal Department for Charity. However, while last winter the main purpose of the Hangar was to provide a warm place to stay overnight to those in freezing cold, this winter the tent’s work will be intended, first of all, for a complex solving of the homeless’ problems returning them to the society. This decision was made because the Moscow Department for Social Protection expressed its willingness to allot up to 500 additional beds for sheltering the homeless in the city social adaptation centers. Every evening a bus “of social patrol” will drive them there and stay on standby near the tent.
The “Miloserdie” service notes that in the event the city social adaptation centers overflows it will resume working during night shift as well.
The tent for the homeless was officially opened in Moscow in January 2014. The project was created with the participation and on the initiative of the parish of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Khokhly, the “Helper and Protector” charitable foundation, the “Miloserdie” service, and other Orthodox organizations of Moscow. Within the first 55 days of the tent’s work alone 4,600 people received help.
Today, “the Hangar of Salvation” is one of more than 20 social projects of the “Miloserdie” Orthodox aid service and it needs a continued support of donors. Owing to the tent’s connection to the power supply networks through efforts of The Moscow United Electric Grid Company (MOESK), expenditures have decreased; but for its functioning funds are still needed – for work of the diesel generator (warm air fan), food and clothes for the homeless, sewerage system service (dry closets are installed by the tent), staff workers’ salaries, regular sanitary disposal of the tent and so on. The work of “the Hangar of Salvation” is carried out solely by voluntary donations.
During the present financially unstable situation of the recent months the “Miloserdie” service projects, including “the Hangar of Salvation”, especially need help.
