St. Teresa's Deacon Craig LaGier to speak at Democratic luncheon

The featured speaker at Monday's Democratic luncheon will be Deacon Craig LaGier, St. Vincent Advisor and Minister to the Homeless at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Community. He also serves as Chaplin for the Carson City Sheriff's Office. Deacon Craig is also the Founding Director of the Night Off The Streets program, or NOTS for short. To reduce the risk of ill healh or death due to hypothermia, NOTS provides overnight shelter at local churches to people without homes.

Deacon Craig organized he program six years ago after four individuals experiencing homelessness died of exposure to the elements in a single winter. Since NOTS began, no one has frozen to death for lack of shelter on the streets of Carson City

News reports about Deacon Craig's homeless ministry provide invaluable insights into what he does as well as how and why he does it. The following collection of clippings should leave no doubt as to why Deacon Craig is so beloved by so many in the Carson communiy.

This excerpt was taken from a report about the NOTS program published by Carson Now on December 7, 2017:

With cold weather having settled into the region, five churches in Carson City have partnered this season to operate nightly winter warming shelters for the area’s homeless. These volunteer-staffed shelters will rotate monthly, each providing a warm place to sleep for the homeless and their pets.

The first shelter opened Nov. 18 and is located at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Community Church. It will operate through Dec. 22. The shelter will move each month throughout winter to each of the participating churches. Here is the schedule:

— First United Methodist: Dec. 23 to Jan. 31

— St. Paul’s Lutheran: Feb. 1 to Feb. 28

— St. Peter’s Episcopal: March 1 to March 31

The Salvation Army, the fifth church organization, is helping as well by donating the use of a transport van that picks up clients at F.I.S.H (Friends In Service Helping) organization, 9 p.m. sharp each night.

The van is often driven by Carson City Sheriff’s Office Chaplain and Shelter Coordinator Craig LaGier.

“We’re here if they want the help. All they’ve got to do is ask. We’ve got the resources,” he said.

According to LaGier, the shelter is open to all who need a warm place to stay the night. Pets are accepted and clients who may be intoxicated will not be turned away. However, drugs and alcohol are not allowed inside.

The clients at the shelter receive a cot, blankets and hot water and decaf coffee. Kennels for pets provided by the local Pets of The Homeless organization are available as well. The clients can mingle and wind down before lights out at 10 p.m.

“Unfortunately we do have a homeless problem in Carson City. This year’s warming shelter is a big improvement over what we’ve done in the past,” said Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell. “We live in a wonderful community where people care for each other and that is evident by this warming shelter.”

In previous years, a warming shelter was operated at Fuji Park, but would only open if temperatures reached 16 degrees or colder. This left people in frigid temperatures throughout much of the winter. LaGier himself has come upon people on the street who have died due to freezing temperatures in the past.

With the current arrangements the shelter is open 7 nights a week through March 31, including holidays.

“We did this for a month last year to see if this would work and three guys found themselves a job,” said LaGier. “One picked up a position working for the city and another received a manufacturing job in Gardnerville.”

Shelter clients spoke graciously of Chaplain LaGier. After parking the van he walked with the passengers to the door of the church carrying a backpack to assist one of them.

“Do you ever sleep?” one of the homeless clients asked LaGier. The chaplain then replied “sleep is over-rated.”

Last year the Carson City Sheriff’s Office opened its Ormsby Room to the shelter on a few occasion in which the Fuji Park location was not accessible. Aside from some minor challenges, Sheriff Ken Furlong thought it went well.

“I was very happy to see the churches take on the challenge this year,” he said. “We are seeing everyone stepping up for the right reasons and the right outcomes.”

While the new shelter exists, the nightly challenges are real, Furlong said. The homeless can get into peril in the cold and that’s why it is important the facilities remain versatile.

The following is a report by KOLO reporter Denise Wong and published on the station's website on December 13, 2017:

Local churches join forces to provide shelter in Carson City

Deacon Craig LaGier is doing what he does most mornings when it's cold in Carson City. He is driving his truck around and handing out hand warmers, gloves, sleeping bags, and coats to people living on the street. He gets tearful when asked why he does this.

"Mainly, I do it because they're human beings and they're a part of our community," says Deacon LaGier.

He also tells them where they can go for a warm place to stay at night. This year, he is able to tell them about something new: for the first time, five church organizations have joined forces to operate winter warming shelters. The shelter will rotate to a different church each month. St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Community Church has been the first shelter since November 18. The shelters will move to First United Methodist, then St. Paul's Lutheran, and finally St. Peter's Episcopal. The service should provide warm shelters to the homeless through the end of March. Deacon LaGier says The Salvation Army is the fifth church organization that is helping, but instead of providing a shelter, it is supplying the vehicle that will provide rides to the shelters.

"It really creates a community that has depths becuse it crosses our communities," says Daphne DeLeon, a parishioner at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Community Church, who came up with the idea that relies entirely on church volunteers.

"If we don't have volunteers, we're not able to offer this service to our community. We have more than 100 volunteers," says DeLeon.

With an average of 20 people staying each night at the shelter so far this season, this operation has provided another option to Friends In Service Helping, also known as FISH, which has limited beds. And while Carson City's homeless population is significantly smaller than Reno's (Deacon LaGier says he estimates there are about 150 on the streets at night in Carson City), advocates in the homeless in Reno are watching closely. The temporary overflow shelter for the homeless that just opened in downtown Reno last week also using volunteers from different churches to staff it. And the folks running the shelter at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Community Church plan to meet with officials from ACTIONN (Acting in Community Together in Organizing Northern Nevada) next month.

"We're hoping to meet in the first of the year to find those commonalities and leverage each others' strengths both in Carson City and in Reno," says DeLeon.

The following excerpt is from a July 28, 2021 report by Carson Now editor and reporter Kelsey Penrose:

LaGier helped to create NOTS and has been out on the streets daily handing out bottled water during the heatwaves this summer with other NOTS volunteers, but he says it’s not enough.

“There’s nowhere for them to go to get out of the heat except the city parks, and (the city) doesn’t want them hanging out there for too long either,” said LaGier.

LaGier and the NOTS crew, including licensed social-worker Molly McGregor, who helps to run the NOTS program, stepped in to help when the Frontier Motel was closed down, forcing out tenants from its 51 rooms with nowhere to go. Those who were made homeless by the motel’s shutdown were housed at the Salvation Army building on Colorado Street, but that was only temporary. Now at least four people from the Frontier remain homeless today.

“And most likely, those people will now become chronically homeless,” said McGregor.

“We have got to have some place to keep these people,” said LaGier.

One major issue, according to LaGier, is that unlike other cities, Carson City doesn’t have transitional housing for those who want to work but need help becoming stabilized.

LaGier was reminded of one man in particular who lived in a tent in a field behind a sporting goods store, and every day would wake up and walk across town to FISH to take a shower and get ready for his job in a restaurant. When LaGier asked him why he didn’t get a motel room, the man said they were too expensive, and if he spent any of his money on a nightly room, he would never be able to save up enough money for a security deposit for an apartment.

Having a shelter in town would benefit law enforcement and social services as well as the population it would help house, according to LaGier.

For example, for an individual who is homeless who qualifies for assistance or help with mental health issues, it is extremely difficult for social services to find those individuals if they do not have a place to stay. LaGier and his fellow volunteers will help to track down certain individuals, such as a homeless veteran who had qualified for VA housing in Reno, but if there was a shelter in town, that time could be spent on other endeavors.

While there are smaller shelters, such as the FOCUS House, which offers 16 nightly beds for men, or the Wylie House, which offers 8 single women and/or families nightly shelter, there are limitations for individuals who have records or mental health issues.

According to LaGier, there are approximately 250 homeless individuals residing in Carson City, who are all competing for the 24 open beds at FOCUS and Wylie.

“The NOTS program is not sustainable,” said McGregor. “It is physically impossible, because we are volunteer based, and the average volunteer is between 65 and 75 years old. These are people who are retired or nearing retirement, and we do this to keep people from freezing to death, but we can’t sustain it.”

LaGier and McGregor would like to see the city stepping in to help. NOTS receives no funding from the city, and relies on its volunteers, the churches and the local non-profits to keep the program running. But this is only during the winter months. During the summer there is no help for those on the streets when it comes to shelter.

During the 2019 season, NOTS provided 4,283 beds, with an average of about 28 guests per night, the highest count in one night being 42 individuals. That was a 28 percent increase from the previous season and it seems the number of individuals who need shelter will only continue to grow.

“My hope is that we can get a shelter set up and a city employee could manage it, or even staff it,” said LaGier.

LaGier and other NOTS volunteers toured Portland tiny home developments used specifically for those who are homeless which he says are successful, and are usually moveable and are placed on empty, vacant lots until the lots are sold, at which point the tiny home community packs up and moves to a new location. LaGier believes a similar program would work here, although they’d hope to have a permanent location and facility most of all.

LaGier, being a deacon, said he is committed to helping those in need because it is his Christian duty, and every Christian’s duty.

“It’s what God has asked us to do, to take care of our brothers and sisters,” said LaGier. “As a minister I can tell you, my closest feeling to seeing God on earth is to look into homeless eyes. The biggest thing you’ll see with a homeless person is a lack of hope. They’ve lost all hope. They feel like they are nobodies, that no one sees them, and no one talks to them.”

To become a NOTS volunteer, it is not required for anyone to be a member of any church, but rather to have a desire to help those in need.

The NOTS program runs in three to four-hour shifts for pairs of volunteers from 8:30 pm to 7:00 am.
There is a particular need for male volunteers. For those interested in volunteering, please send all questions, concerns, and/or comments to Molly McGregor at notscarson@gmail.com or 775-350-9511.

LaGier and McGregor will continue to provide assistance whether it be in the forms of the winter NOTS program or handing out bottles of water during the heatwave, but both agree it is time for the city to step in and assist them and those suffering from homelessness in Carson City.

Sponsored by the Democratic Men's Committee, this event is scheduled for noon on Monday, October 4th. Deacon Craig will be presenting via Zoom. Participants are invited to join the conversation through Zoom or in person at Democratic HQ. Those wishing to be on distribution for the luncheon Zoom links should email Rich Dunn, Men's Committee Events Coordinator, at richdunn@aol.com.