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PABC Closing Making Large Problem for Thumb Homeless (Video)
Chelsea Dickens
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 22:22:25 EDT
click on the picture to enlarge
The Port Austin Bible Campus has an extensive history, once an Air Force Radar Station and now a retiring Christian Homeless Shelter. It will not be vacant long, but it will be no longer serve as the only general homeless shelter in Huron County.
The shelter was purchased in 2004 by Norman and Marleen Edwards and was than an active shelter starting 2010, but naturally, the Edwards felt it was time they sell the shelter in order to move to Nashville, near most of their children.
Initially, Edwards thought that the Michigan House of Hope would take on the ministry and continue the current land grant. Then the decision to buy fell through in April and left the Edwards' with the task of finding other buyers, they found Huron Castings Incorporated.
As of Friday, June 15th, upon contingency, Castings made an offer to the Edwards to buy the campus for a special project.
That does not imply that the five individuals still living at the PABC will immediately begin working there. They all have been arranged to go elsewhere to work and live.
In total, 1,088 people have been helped in some way by these two individuals. Considering the amount of rooms they have made available in cases where someone was displaced for any manner of time, they have actually helped nearly 60,000 people in their 8 years of service.
What is expected to happen now to in the future varies, according to Norman. "Some few people will find a way to avoid coming here. A lot of the single people will go to Bay County or Saginaw, but a lot of shelters more and more are not taking people from out of the county," he said.
The Thumb region does not offer much, according to Edwards, in ways of shelters for people with no where to go. To him, that means there will be an increase in crime and by people who do not trust anyone or do not understand any better due to their background as children.
Future homeless populations may have other shelters coming to the area, but once the last few visitors and the Edwards leave the PABC there will be no shelters in the immediate area, unless another comes along.
For the interview with Norman Edwards reflecting on his service, there is a video attached to the article.
