PORT program estimates increase in unhoused people in need for the winter [Video]

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Program directors of the PORT (People Offering Resources Together) winter shelter program in Newport News project there could be as many as 775 unhoused guests through the program’s sheltering efforts this winter season, a potential increase from last year. 

Across Newport News, there are 20 churches in the city that rotate sheltering the city’s unhoused population between November and March. 

The program, brought on by a collaboration of multiple partnerships and agencies, has completed three weeks of the 20-week schedule. So far, it has registered 250 unhoused guests with 15 weeks until PORT’s closure, averaging 80 people per day, including veterans and children. 

“We’re seeing more veterans now than I’ve seen in the past,” said Elmer Woodard the deacon at the First Baptist Church in Denbigh. First Baptist is where the Week 5 …