“My backpack along with the shoe pack is probably about 50 pounds,” said Cody Nelson, a Fort Collins man.
He is homeless.
“It’s a matter of bad decision making and a matter of coincidence,” Nelson said.
He’s on the job hunt, but something’s holding him back.
“I’m forced to walk into a new establishment with my resume in hand, trying to look respectable, but I have 3 jackets on, a bag of shoes, and a backpack,” he said.
Now, Pastor Steve Ramer of the Fort Collins Mennonite Fellowship is stepping up. He is raising money to build 20 lockers outside its building.
“Those lockers will be used by folks that are homeless for secure storage, and they will be available 24/7,” Ramer said.
The Murphy Center in Fort Collins already has lockers for the homeless, but they are only accessible certain hours of the day. The lockers Ramer is proposing would be available all day and night.
“We’ll have somebody managing them to make sure there’s nothing out there that shouldn’t be,” Ramer said.
People who want to acquire a locker will have to go through an interview process conducted by a staff member from the church. The individuals will then be able to access their lockers for three months before somebody else takes it over.
According to Ramer, no weapons, drugs, or even food will be allowed in the lockers.
“We don’t want the lockers to attract any undesirable behavior,” he said.
Ramer is more than halfway to his fundraising goal and hopes to start constructing the lockers within the next few weeks.
The GoFundMe page for the project can be found here.
