Freezing temperatures push homeless shelters and warming centers to capacity
A community activist crashed a city press conference Friday morning concerning Columbus snow removal and warming-shelter resources and claimed the city’s efforts for helping the homeless brave a recent cold snap were insufficient.
“I’d be glad to work with you, but I’m just sick and tired of hearing the lies that you’ve got everything taken care of, and it’s not,” Gary Witte, a homelessness activist, told Steve Skovensky, chief program officer with the Community Shelter Board, the governmentfunded operation that coordinates the region’s response to homelessness.
Skovensky told The Dispatch after the media event that while shelters and warming centers are near capacity, no one has been turned away to his knowledge at the city’s nine traditional homeless shelters - two which can accommodate families - seven traditional shelters for adults, plus three overnight “warming centers,” which operate during winter weather events.
“What I would say that anyone in the community that’s raising their hand and wants to be part of addressing the homelessness, we want to talk to and we want to see if we can partner,” Skovensky said.
The Dispatch reported Wednesday that the Franklin County Coroner’s office is investigating whether hazardous, freezing temperatures played a role in the deaths of at least two men who died over last weekend. A 55-year-old man died on Saturday afternoon after he was found in a collapsed tent in a homeless camp, according to the coroner’s office. Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene. The following day, authorities found a 33-year-old man dead in the front yard of a home on Forest Street in Driving Park.
“Shelter is available,” Skovensky said. “We never want to commit to a specific location, because if that’s full, other options are available. But, emergency, safe, safe shelter is available for everybody.”
At this point, no one has been turned away, he said. “We’re going to make room for everybody,” adding that free rides were available through car services that could transport people to a facility with room available. The emergency number to call is 614-274-7000. However, when The Dispatch called that number Friday afternoon, it was informed that rides were available “on a case by case” basis as a last resort, and that generally people were encouraged to find their own transportation.
“It’s so overcrowded, it’s so unkempt. It needs to change,” Witte told reporters outside after the media event in Linden, at a city snowplow depot. “The solution is tiny homes. The solution is more housing, decent housing.
“They don’t care about the homeless people because they don’t contribute to their campaign fund. I’m saying it. That’s the reason.”
Witte said that volunteers have been manning an overnight warming center in the basement of the Columbus Mennonite Church, Oakland Park Ave., in Clintonville for several nights. Volunteers have brought in food and blankets.
But the church had to put a limit on the number it let in at 40 people, and had to turn people away, Witte said. “We had to put a sign on that said ‘Sorry, we’re at capacity.’” The church gave out the emergency hotline number, but during a conversation he overheard earlier this week, the operator informed a caller to go “to an all-night burger place, buy a 50-cent burger and stay there all night.”
“The system doesn’t work,” Witte said, adding that the city should open some of its recreation centers overnight as warming centers, rather than just being used during the day.
Skovensky said he planned to reach out to the Mennonite Church later Friday to see how the Shelter Board could better coordinate with their privately run warming-center operation.
The temperature in Columbus is projected to drop to 10 degrees Friday night and Saturday morning, with a 50% chance of snow, and is not expected to return above freezing until Monday, when the high is expected to hit 36 degrees. wbush@gannett.com @Reporterbush