ELLENVILLE – For the second year running, Empowering Ellenville (along with the other regional Empowerment centers) is offering its downtown Ellenville offices as a warming shelter for anyone with no home or with no heat in their home overnight. The warming shelter is open from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.

At a Sunday evening meeting of the local group, volunteers and others discussed issues surrounding the shelter. Evan Baker, a social worker with a long time of service at Rikers Island, the infamous city jail in New York City, explained that sometimes a homeless individual will be difficult to deal with. He said that volunteers must avoid confrontation and remember that life on the streets is hard and full of conflicts. Baker noted that he had spent eight of his years at Rikers Island working in the Punitive Segregation for Adolescents area. An understanding of psychology is essential for this work.

Sandra Oglesby, an attorney and long time force within Empowering Ellenville, explained that "we always use the buddy system so volunteers will not be spending the time there alone. The shelter also operates a split shift so no one is there from 8 to 8."

Empowering Ellenville is one of three Empowerment centers set up by the crusading local attorney Michael Sussman. The other two are in Liberty and Port Jervis. Oglesby noted that Baker, who is an Empowerment employee, "floats" between the warming shelters of Port Jervis and Ellenville, checking in on each of them every night.

Oglesby added that local businesses have been helpful to the warming shelter mission.

"We offer these people the chance to come in, get warm, have a cup of soup or coffee," she said. "And this is whether they're homeless or coming from a cold house or apartment. We've had several donations from the various local restaurants to help us with this."

Oglesby further explained that after a person has come to the shelter three nights in a row, "we can take them down to the Middletown shelter, which has a drug treatment aspect. We also make arrangements for them to go to the Department of Social Services and get counseling and help with finding temporary shelter or housing if they qualify for it. However, if there are substance abuse issues then they have to go into rehab. What we try to do is give them the best avenue of resource."

Empowering Ellenville seeks more volunteers and is currently negotiating with Samaritan Village/Renaissance, to combine efforts on such things as volunteer teaching of parental skills and an understanding of the basics of nutrition. For more information call 1-877-576-9931.

Following the warming shelter discussion, Mike Wendel, the local activist concerned with issues arising from the aqueduct buyout program and toxic pollutants from such sources as the Napanoch Paper Mill, gave a presentation on his new Rondout Creek Disease Registry, explaining that three toxic pollutants in particular had been discovered in the water beneath parts of the Town of Wawarsing — Trichloroethylene, Benzene and Methyl Chloride.

Wendel said that the disease registry is a way to bring redress to people who may have been contaminated by their drinking water without their knowledge. Anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer or other illnesses that may be attributable to the effects of toxic pollutants, he added, should come in and enter themselves on the registry. Wendel intends to have someone on hand daily at the Empowering Ellenville office, 159 Canal St., Ellenville, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. beginning Monday, February 8, to conduct registrations. He added that he sees the fully developed registry serving as a tool for forcing local politicians and State and New York City officials to deal with local issues involving toxic clean-ups and disease. Empowering Ellenville was also set to hold another of its regular sessions on how to find legal help this past Thursday evening, February 4, with Sussman, and is hosting a MISN (Maternal Infant Support Network) informational and get-to-know-you session on Tuesday, February 16 at 6 p.m.

Look up Empowering Ellenville on Facebook or check out their window on Canal Street, next to the theatre, for more information on all these and other EE programs.