I've been thinking about the last time I slept in a tent. It was in 1987 when I went camping with my friend Peggy. I've known her since high school - I'm the one with sassy things to say and she's the athlete. We've been back-packing together for years. Our only problems on that trip were a lot of flies at one campsite, so we couldn't sleep, and several enraged deer at another who for some reason decided to attack the clothes we'd left drying on a fallen tree, rending holes in everything. I remember having a great time, and also being happy to return to civilization, take a shower and hop on a plane back to my cosy apartment in Cambridge.

I think of this because today is the last day our homeless shelter, Hospitality House, will be open until next fall. Quite a few people are newly homeless this year and have never slept outside before, except, maybe, when they went camping. A lot of them are scared. It's one thing to decide to tromp off into the woods for ten days with your best friend, and another to have nowhere else to go. Around here, we live in terrain alongside coyotes, bears, bobcats, raccoons, squirrels, and the occasional mountain lion, so food storage and personal safety are issues. We also get regular forest fires. If I were homeless, I'd be scared too.

I feel awful about people having no place to live. My first impulse is to rent portapotties and set up tents in my yard. At the same time, I'm not the most financially secure person you ever met — self-employed poets rarely are — and I wonder how far away I am from living in a tent myself? So what to do, what to do?

Lots of people are doing something, but so far it's a seasonal venture. Hospitality House, through 20 generous local faith communities who donate space in rotation, has a place for their homeless guests to sleep every night and eat a hot dinner from October through April. During the day, people can have lunch and baked goods donated by volunteers and area restaurants, wash their clothes, take showers, and receive compassionate human contact at the main office. The day-time offerings will continue through the year, but starting May 1st people are on their own at night.

One thing I could do is donate a little money. A little is all I have, but the organization's annual budget of over two-hundred thousand dollars is almost entirely gathered from small donors like me. If enough of us gave a little, the facilities could stay open all year. Or maybe right now they need soap — I could find out and drive some over. I could make lunches or take bottled water to the camp sites this summer.

We could all so easily become homeless. It takes one house-fire, one lay-off, one big medical bill. I think a way to express thanks for my own roof and to make losing a home less frightening is to help the people it's already happened to. Another thing you could try — I'm going to — is to spend a couple of nights outside in a tent this year, camping.