12/05/2025
VERONICA’S VEIL OVERNIGHT SHELTER FOR MEN NEEDS YOUR HELP!
A Shepherd’s Call to His Flock...
I am writing to ask your help with a new initiative here at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
It has been placed powerfully on my heart that something must be done, as a Church, to do what we can to help alleviate the homelessness crisis in these winter months...
-Father Shawn J. Hughes, 2022
These ambitious, hopeful words were spoken from the ambo of St. Mary’s Cathedral as the feature of a Homily in late November four years ago.
Out of this plea, Veronica’s Veil Overnight Shelter for Men opened its doors for its first year on a cold snowy January evening. But we are in danger of not being able to open in early January for our fourth year due to a lack of male volunteers to staff shifts!
In the past month, the weather has gone from warm, to cool, to extreme wet, to very cold winds, plummeting temperatures close to minus nineteen at night, and now…snow.
To those men who are experiencing homelessness, the very act of sleeping outside in the elements places them at great risk. Risk of sickness, risk of limbs due to frost bite, hunger, mental health, assault, and even worse, the thought to just giving up completely.
The Overnight Shelter is in desperate need for male volunteers to staff shifts beginning in January through to April of 2026. One four hour shift, once a week from January to April is all we are asking for.
As we journey through Advent towards Christmas, we are reminded of sung words from the
