COLFAX - Charlene Coultas can't bear to be cold - or imagine the homeless being cold.

"I lay awake at night and think it's so cold, how in the world are all these people existing?" she said.

So when she was flipping through a magazine about 10 years ago and saw an article about "ugly sleeping bags" for the homeless, it caught her eye.

She thought it would be a perfect project for the Anchor Christian Church.

"We only had 10 members then, so we couldn't get it started," she said.

But she didn't give up. When the Anchor church closed and members started attending Colfax Christian Church, Coultas brought the idea up again. A core group of four women- Ella Mae Shoemaker, Eunice Hufford and Bernadine Sticklan of Colfax and Coultas of Anchor - started meeting twice a week to work on the project.

That was 1,000 sleeping bags ago.

"It's a project close to my heart," said Coultas. "I really enjoy it, and I think it's important to do."

The group gives the sleeping bags to PATH in Bloomington. Jennifer Nettleton, outreach worker for the homeless, takes some to Safe Harbor homeless shelter to distribute and gives others to those who prefer not to go to the shelters. PATH also gives some to people who just got an apartment but have no furniture.

Coultas said it takes two people about two hours to make two sleeping bags.

The project has garnered more volunteers since the Colfax and Arrowsmith Christian churches merged recently.

"I knew Charlene before," said Cheryl McHenry of the Arrowsmith church. "She said she did bed roll sleeping bags and I said I would help."

McHenry has become such a big supporter that she sometimes works on the sleeping bags at home.

June Kirkpatrick of the Arrowsmith church said she started helping because "these guys looked desperate."

"We need all the help we can get so we took her," joked McHenry.

Joyce Jones and Loretta Gibbens also help. Gibbens and her husband have helped Safe Harbor in the past.

"I know there's a need for the homeless to be provided for," said Gibbens. "I think this is a worthwhile project."

Besides, she quipped, "It beats doing laundry and sweeping the floor."

Coultas said the group has worked non-stop through the years, with one exception: a few years ago, when they ran out of supplies.

"We had to quit. I hated to give it up," she said.

As luck would have it, someone linked the group with the Best Western Hotel in Bloomington, which agreed to donate its old bedspreads and blankets for the project.

"When you have faith in it, it'll keep going," said Coultas.

The group uses one bedspread and two blankets for each sleeping bag. Before they sew them together by hand, the blankets go to Virginia Downs of Colfax, who adds a strip to each so they fit the cut-down, 7-foot-by-7-foot bedspread.

"If we happen to get a wool blanket, it's really nice," said Coultas. "They're really warm."

The group also tries to put stocking caps, gloves, socks, a bar of soap and a prayer inside each sleeping bag before it is rolled up and tied together.

"I don't know if they read it (the prayer)," Coultas said, "but we've got to try to touch someone."

The group contacts PATH whenever they have finished 10 sleeping bags - as many as will fit in Nettleton's car.

"I'm just tickled to death when we get another 10 done," said Coultas. "It does me about as much good as it does the homeless.

"I have a heart for service. I'm happiest when I'm doing it," she said.

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How to help

The sleeping bags for the homeless project can use donations to help keep it going. Listed are items needed:

• Bedspreads (new or used)

• Blankets (new or used)

• Yarn

• Stocking caps

• Gloves

• Socks

• Small bars of soap

Donations may be dropped off at the Colfax Christian Church, 106 N. Center St., Colfax, or mailed to the church at P.O. Box 267, Colfax, IL 61728. Because the Colfax and Arrowsmith churches take turns holding services, those with donations might call Pastor Dan Jassman at (309) 723-5821 or (309) 723-5008 before dropping off the items.

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Chronically homeless numbers down

By Mary Ann Ford | mford@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON - The number of chronically homeless people is down not only nationwide, but in the area.

Jennifer Nettleton, homeless advocate at PATH, said the number of chronically homeless dipped from 87 in January of 2006 to 57 in January 2007 in McLean, Livingston, Dewitt, Logan, Mason, Menard, Piatt, Ford, Iroquois, Kankakee, Kendall, Grundy and Vermillion counties.

Those counties fall under PATH's Continuum of Care, or coordination of homeless services.

That drop mirrors nationwide numbers released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last month. HUD reported nearly a 12 percent decrease in the number of chronically homeless, with more than 20,000 people moving from the streets into transitional or permanent housing between 2005 and 2006.

HUD defines chronically homeless as being disabled and either continuously homeless for a year or more or having at least four homeless episodes in the past three years.

Tom Fulop, director of The Salvation Army's Safe Harbor homeless shelter, estimates there are about 30 people who fall in that category in the Twin Cities. While Fulop bends the rules when it's really cold and takes in some homeless he might not otherwise, he said there still are about eight people living on the streets in the winter.

"It helps people who have sleeping bags and are out in the cold," he said.

Nettleton said a new HUD philosophy is attempting to better address the chronically homeless and can be credited for some of that decrease in those who still live on the streets.

"HUD has gone to the idea that rather than provide supportive services, they've shifted to permanent supportive housing, like (Bloomington's) Mayor's Manor," she said.

Mayor's Manor is an affordable housing project operated by Mid Central Community Action for people with physical or mental disabilities, recovering addicts and homeless people.

Nettleton said that philosophy takes the chronic homeless out of the supportive services help lines, allowing those services to be cut back and more money to be put toward permanent housing options.

The area's Continuum of Care currently is eyeing adding such housing options in Vermillion, Kendall and Grundy counties, she said.

Last year, HUD awarded $286 million to local homeless programs throughout the country. That money helped create 4,000 new permanent housing options, the agency said.

HUD is asking Congress for a record $1.6 billion for its fiscal year 2008 Continuum of Care homeless assistance grant programs.