With the season's first cold snap in the rearview, the Community Shelter Board is looking forward to opening four warming sites this year.
Adam Rowan, chief compliance and operations officer for the Community Shelter Board, said the board will have an extra 160 beds available at the centers, with some locations accepting pets or couples, or focusing on youth ages 18 to 24.
The Community Shelter Board started with that number of beds at warming centers last year, but jumped up to 200 after the Columbus City Council offered additional funding, Rowan said.
"We're really trying to take what we anticipate as a budget and use it to the best of our extent possible to create beds," Rowan said.
Rowan said the shelter board is still finalizing funding for the coming year, but can adjust the number of beds and locations if they end up with more or less money than expected.
As of now, the shelter board plans to open two warming centers in early December. One location on the north side of town is set to have 40 beds and be pet-friendly, but will be by referral. Another central location will have 20 beds, be pet-friendly and accept walk-ins.
Beginning in January, more beds are expected to be added to the central location, and additional warming centers are set to open on the south and northeast sides of town. All warming centers are expected to stay open through the end of March.
The Community Shelter Board will announce exact locations for all its winter warming centers at the beginning of December.
The shelter board chooses locations for warming sites by putting out requests to organizations and then evaluating the responses based on geographic locations, populations that they serve and costs associated with running the center, Rowan said.
This will be the shelter board's third year running the warming centers.
"We wanted to try to find community-based locations and develop new entry points so that people could have resources during the cold weather," Rowan said.
He said the sites have been effective in helping people who otherwise might not go to shelters.
"Last year, of all the individuals we served in warming centers, 30% of them had never touched the shelter system before," Rowan said.
Rowan said more than 50 people who came to warming centers last season were put in housing or went into treatment.
The warming centers stay open through the cold months. The Community Shelter Board also adds temporary spaces either at congregate sites or at hotels during particularly cold days. Rowan said the shelter board already has done that this season, during last week's snowstorm.
"I think the most important thing about our weather response for this season is that if somebody reaches out, whether that's walking into a warming center or calling the hotline for assistance, no one will hear the word 'no,'" Rowan said.
He said that last year, about 400 people in total took advantage of the season-long warming centers and the sites that opened only on the coldest days.
