Agencies work together to provide storm shelter
Street outreach teams have been urging homeless individuals to seek shelter in the wake of winter storms that have brought freezing temperatures to the metro area.
The teams' messaging seems to be working, said Dan Straughan, executive director of the Oklahoma City Homeless Alliance.
Monday, he said, outreach teams have been distributing flyers with a list of shelters and warming station locations. They were also sharing information about frost bite and hypothermia.
Straughan said, most of all, team members are telling people that the current winter storms are vastly different from storms many of the homeless may have experienced in the past.
“A lot of what they are saying is` Look, I know you've had winter weather before but not like this,'” he said.
S tr aug hans aid the teams' efforts have been largely successful.
About 180 people stayed overnight Sunday at the new Willard Winter Shelter, a temporary emergency night shelter, he said. And the homeless alliance filled a local motel — 40 rooms — with mostly homeless families in one afternoon.
“The street outreach people don' t give up. They know what they're doing,” he said.
He said no one knew such brutally cold weather would becoming just a few weeks after the Willard shelter opened in January through a partnership between the homeless alliance and the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma. The emergency shelter opened just in time.
Straughan said many people have generously donated coats, hats and gloves — so much so that the homeless alliance doesn' t need more of those items at this time.
However, he said, financial donations would be appreciated because these donations help with things like renting motel rooms for a week. Along those lines, St ra ughan said the homeless alliance (https://homelessall i ance. org) appreciated the Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma's recent large donation to pay for the motel rooms that were quickly filled.
Kinsey Crocker, the homeless alliance's communications director, said Embark is providing free bus rides to the warming centers and shelters. The homeless alliance's day shelter, which generally opens five days a week, is temporarily open seven days a week.
She said such information is being posted on the homeless alliance' s Facebook page and other social media to keep people abreast of available shelter in the Oklahoma City area. Crocker said the information is updated as needed.
“Numbers have gone up, which is a good thing because we really want people to be inside,” she said.
Meanwhile, Maj. Stephen Ellis, leader of the Salvation Army Central Oklahoma Command, said a handful of women have sought shelter from the agencies' emergency shelter for women and women with children, which opened Saturday. He said one woman came with her child and each of the other women arrived by themselves.
Ellis said Salvation Army leaders knew that the Willard Winter Shelter was “Plan A” for winter weather emergencies and his faith-based organization offered its additional space for women as a “Plan B” in case the Willard center was close to capacity. Ellis said the additional space offered Saturday was in addition to the Salvation Army's 109 shelter beds available year-round for homeless men, woman and families.
Ellis said the Salvation Army' s Night Watch Team had also been out offering cold-weather gear to homeless individuals and encouraging them to take shelter.
“Now that we' re in this particular crisis, we came on board as back up as there was a need more than ever to get people off the streets,” he said.