We are writing you today to send you a “welcome letter” and express our desire to be good neighbors to you while you live here on the west end of Athens.
We thought it would be helpful for you to understand something about Good Works’ TIMOTHY HOUSE so that we can have a good relationship. It is certainly our desire to have good, clear communication with you during the time you are living in this neighborhood. I’ve enclosed some information for you to read which explains some of our history and current outreach programs. Our shelter for the homeless (The Timothy House) can hold up to 15 people at one time. We have a good working relationship with most of the Athens social services agencies, religious communities and Police. In addition to our shelter on Central Avenue, we also operate several other outreach and service programs from our other location on Luhrig Road which is about 3 miles from here. I’ve enclosed some information for you about these as well.
What I especially want you to know about The Good Works TIMOTHY HOUSE is this:
What we do to help the rural homeless flows out of our lives. We do this because we are Christians.
We do not take “walk ons” at The Timothy House. We have never published our address and we only accept people for shelter who have called first. We do this both to protect our neighborhood from people “hanging around” and also to prepare our staff and volunteers to welcome each new resident. If someone does come to the door, we will usually give them 50 cents and send them to a pay telephone. We do NOT want you to let them use your phone. We may deny them shelter if they cause problems for you, bother you, or if they are inconsiderate or rude to any of our neighbors.
We take the fact that you live here all year very seriously. Since we are allowing 200 + homeless people to stay in THE TIMOTHY HOUSE each year, we feel a strong commitment to respect our neighbors and our neighborhood. Some of the folks who stay here are very kind and considerate of those around them while others can be ungrateful and at times very difficult to deal with. Therefore, we instruct our residents not to loiter in the neighborhood. In other words, they may not “hang out” on other properties in the neighborhood while they are a resident of The Timothy House. As a condition of their stay with us and in sensitivity to you, we require our residents to be on our property or out of the neighborhood. If they violate this rule or if they cause problems for you, we tell them that it could affect their stay with us. In addition, we request that our residents do not visit you. If you would like to visit with anyone staying at the Timothy House, please visit them there.
We do not allow anyone to stay at THE TIMOTHY HOUSE if they are under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs. We do not allow any one to stay if they have a mental illness that causes them to act out in a way that creates a danger or risk to others. Our mission is to provide a safe, clean and stable place for homeless people to stay temporarily while they work on the issues in their lives which caused them to become homeless.
Single adults who do not have children staying with them must leave each morning by 10:00 a.m. and not return until 5:15 p.m. (unless they are cooking dinner that evening). Parents with children may stay all day. Children under 12 must be in bed by 9:00 p.m. and the house bedtime is 11:00 pm. We HOPE you will be sensitive to the fact that we often have children going to sleep and that loud music after 11:00 pm makes if difficult for anyone to sleep, especially in the warmer months when the windows are kept open all night.
We try to keep a “low profile." We ask all of our residents who listen to music to wear headphones. We ask our residents to keep their voices down while on our porch so as to not to disturb our immediate neighbors. We ask them to be sensitive to you and the fact that while they live here temporarily, you live here all the time. If our residents are loud, insensitive or rude, please call us and let us know.
Most of the people who stay with us are working on helping themselves. Most are employed and many are required to work at late hours. Our house curfew is 10:00 p.m. each night but when someone works late, we do allow them to return to the Timothy House after work.
Effective January 1, 2007 (after 25 years) we do not take in new residents for shelter between midnight and 8:00 am. It is far too disruptive to the current residents of the house.
Guests are permitted at The Timothy House and we welcome you to visit. Just let us know if you are on the property visiting. If you are interested, we would enjoy the opportunity to meet you, have you join us for dinner (M-TH) and provide you a tour of the Timothy House.
HOW YOU CAN H ELP
We welcome volunteers to assist us as we provide a COMM UNITY OF HOPE for the rural homeless. If you would like to learn about our volunteer opportunities, please visit our web page and click on Volunteer Opportunities and then contact us to arrange a time for a visit and we will provide you with an application and more information.
Some of the folks who stay with us are in recovery from addiction with alcohol and other drugs. If you can be sensitive to this, it will make an impact upon them for GOOD. If you use alcohol in your life, we hope that you will be sensitive to those people for whom alcohol and other drugs has created major devastation in their lives. We hope you will work together with us to help them succeed in their recovery.
We want our neighborhood to look good and be safe. We are concerned with your safety and with ours as well. If you see something which concerns you, investigate it and/or contact us. Let’s work together to “watch” our neighborhood for one another. We are making an effort to keep our property clean and well cared for. Together, we can make our neighborhood a beautiful place for all of us to live.
If you have an observation, concern or problem, do not hesitate to call us and share it with us. All we ask is that you tell us who you are when you call. We operate 24 hours daily.
Finally, while Good Works has been around since my wife and I started the program in our home on Elliott Street during my senior year at O.U. in 1981, I am aware that we have a long way to go until we do it right every time. If you have any concerns about our residents or about Good Works in general or would like to know more about how we do things, feel free to call me at 594-9000. I am very interested in meeting you personally and I am glad to learn from you as well. If you’d like, you can also e-mail me at goodworks@good-works.net
Keith Wasserman,
Founder & Executive Director
740.594.9000
Good Works’ Timothy House 740.594.3333 Good Works’ Hannah House 740.594.3336
Good Works’ Administrative Offices 740.594.3339
A LETTER FROM THE GOOD WORKS TIMOTHY HOUSE 