Karen Heller: Students staff shelters to get the homeless on track

On a wicked night, the rain lashing the double doors of Old First Church at Fourth and Race, 30 men file into the social hall for a homemade spaghetti dinner, companionship, and eight hours of rest in a warm, secure place.

"It's not a shelter, but a home," says Villanova University junior Julie Ubriaco. "It is a place where respect is given and received."

The men, all homeless, are called "guests" and treated as such. Care and comfort are provided by an exuberant, dedicated, rotating cadre of 200 volunteers from Villanova, Swarthmore, Penn, Temple, and Drexel, who cook, dine with guests, play games, and converse, with three to five students spending the night every night.

Daniel Cho rode the train 45 minutes in from Swarthmore, then skateboarded from Market East. He arrives at Old First drenched, fighting a cold. This is finals week, an intense time, yet he's here to help.

"Homelessness is more of a complex problem than we believe it to be," says Cho, a junior. "Here, we try and make no distinction between the helper and the helped. We're learning from these people how service ought to be performed."

The Old First Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia, SREHUP for short, opened last month, becoming the nation's second such student-operated facility, following the Harvard Homeless Shelter, founded in 1983.

The Cambridge, Mass., facility runs on a lottery, offering beds for two weeks. In Philadelphia, men are given a place to rest for six months, offering stability through the winter, which gives them the support they need to secure permanent housing.

A second Philadelphia program, also run by SREHUP, opens Wednesday at Arch Street Presbyterian Church, serving 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender young adults, ages 18 to 24, who are without homes due to identity and family issues.

And a third Philadelphia facility starts in early January at Arch Street United Methodist Church, caring for 30 more men. SREHUP will run this facility as well, making the city a national leader in student advocacy for the homeless.

All three Philadelphia programs are the vision of professor Stephanie Sena, 32, who had the idea less than a year ago after hearing an NPR report on the Harvard shelter. Now, Stanford University is calling her, asking how the model she has developed can be re-created in California.