Pictured: Tammy, from The Salvation Army of North Texas, attentively listens during intake at the City of Dallas inclement weather shelter at Fair Park’s Automobile Building, last week.
Introduction
Dallas and Collin Counties have come a long way in the provision of inclement weather shelter. As late as 2017, there was no inclement weather shelter to speak of, beyond existing shelters increasing capacity, sporadic provision of temporary hotel accommodations, and a few law enforcement agencies allowing people to sit in their facilities overnight.
Several deaths in 2017 due to hypothermia galvanized our community to act. Today there are multiple highly organized efforts that provide overnight inclement weather sheltering in Dallas, Plano, McKinney, Garland, Irving, and Mesquite. All efforts have adeptly adjusted to providing this service under pandemic conditions. For an up-to-date listing, go to our website’s I Need Help page or to our dedicated inclement weather shelter blog post.
Dallas
The City of Dallas’ Office of Homeless Solutions now actively monitors the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather forecasts and when necessary formally activates the opening of temporary inclement weather shelter (TIWS). The city’s Communication, Outreach and Marketing team then announces the activation on the Dallas City News website, through press releases, and on city social media channels.
Depending on the severity of the weather, the city encourages those experiencing unsheltered homelessness to go to an existing shelter, to one of two temporary inclement weather shelters, one at OurCalling and one at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, or to a larger more central location. The Office of Homeless Solutions is actively seeking other organizations to apply to serve as temporary inclement weather shelter (TIWS) sites.
OurCalling, a Homeless Collaborative of Dallas and Collin Counties member organization, is most well known for their street outreach, their day center services, and their resource directory/app. Their foray into the provision of inclement weather shelter came naturally, with the opening of their new multipurpose facility primarily geared towards helping those who are unsheltered.
Oak Lawn United Methodist Church (OLUMC) was already helping those experiencing homelessness in their neighborhood in a variety of ways. They felt called to provide inclement weather shelter. As Reverend Rachel Baughman, Homeless Collaborative board member and OLUMC’s senior pastor, said in a recent interview with Spectrum News 1, “It was a freezing night four years ago when someone died sitting at a bus stop experiencing homelessness and they were right outside of a church.”
OurCalling and OLUMC do not work alone. Their closest partners are Homeless Collaborative member organizations, Austin Street Center, The Stewpot, and The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center. However, many more partners provide transportation, food, and financial support.
Just as we were finalizing this blog post, the Dallas Morning News published this news commentary by Sharon Grigsby, Why I love Dallas: How the city and its nonprofits rescued 1,090 homeless residents from the storm.
Plano
The Plano Overnight Warming Station (POWS) is housed at The Salvation Army (one of the largest Homeless Collaborative member organizations in our counties) in Plano. The initiative started when the group of churches working on this effort, led by the Collin County Homeless Coalition, came to the Plano Planning Department, and strategically asked to shelter just 30 people. Both at the planning department level and later at the city council level, these government bodies approved the sheltering of much higher numbers than they asked for!
Today, they are allowed to shelter 150(!) people, which is the capacity of the Salvation Army facility. It was clear that these government bodies understood the truth of what Salvation Army Lieutenant Michael Cain shared recently on WFAA TV, “We actually had guests that, you know, will come to you and say, ‘You actually saved my life.’”
Like the efforts in Dallas, POWS involves many churches, non-profits, and businesses providing transportation, food, and financial support. Their partnership with law enforcement is close too, so much so that the Plano Police Department provides rapid transportation from West Plano to the Salvation Army all the way on the other side of Plano!
McKinney, Garland, Mesquite, Irving
The McKinney Overnight Warming Station, known as “MEOWS”, was developed by the City of McKinney, the Collin County Homeless Coalition, and The Salvation Army.
It is housed at the Salvation Army in McKinney, and it has capacity to accommodate 50 people. Like POWS, its Plano sister inclement weather shelter, MEOWS too, relies on church partners and trained community volunteers who provide check-in, meal service, warm clothing, care, and monitoring support during each night of operation.
GLOWS, the Garland Overnight Warming Shelter, a Homeless Collaborative member organization, is as its website indicates, the only inclement weather shelter in our system which is its very own organization. It too relies heavily on volunteers, as well as the City of Garland and surrounding businesses and church partners. GLOWS operates either at a local church, or when the numbers require larger capacity, at the local Salvation Army.
Weather Activated Refuge for Mesquite or WARM, is a program run by Sharing Life, a Homeless Collaborative member organization with deep roots in Mesquite, having provided a variety of emergency services to families in crisis for over twenty years. It too relies heavily on volunteers. Uniquely in this landscape, its provision of inclement weather shelter is in a non-congregate setting, due to the pandemic, and hence is more limited in its capacity.
In Irving, the Irving Community Action Network (ICAN) and Christ Church Irving, a Homeless Collaborative member organization, came together to implement an Inclement Weather Plan (IWP) for those experiencing unsheltered homelessness in that large suburb. They formed an IWP Working Group to coordinate the execution of this elaborate plan.
The shelter is housed at Christ Church Irving and several organizations are involved, including Homeless Collaborative members, Many Helping Hands, Crisis Ministries, Level Pathways, and Family Promise. The group also works closely with the City of Irving and the Irving Police Department, and it too relies heavily on volunteers.
They have also sought to leverage the provision of inclement weather shelter to provide case management services to those they are sheltering, and hopefully get them on the path to rehousing.
The Role of MDHA and the Homeless Collaborative
Much like the rest of the response to inclement weather, MDHA and the Homeless Collaborative’s role in this these efforts has evolved over time, beginning back in 2017 with facilitating the development of increased capacity at existing shelters during inclement weather events. Today, they play several key roles in this effort.
MDHA amplifies the voice of all inclement weather shelter operations in both counties, getting the message out through its blog, email lists, and social media channels. This ensures agencies in the Homeless Collaborative know which inclement weather shelters are open and how they can direct their clients to the correct location.
MDHA’s CEO, Joli Robinson, and CPO, Sarah Kahn, work closely with the City of Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions and partner agencies on planning, lead regular planning meetings that help chart the course of all aspects of inclement weather sheltering, and highlight needs and gaps and how MDHA and its partners might address them.
MDHA’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Director, Freda Nelms, leads the data collection efforts related to inclement weather shelter. Data collection is important because it helps MDHA and the Homeless Collaborative understand who sought shelter, what their specific needs are, and how we can end their homelessness.
MDHA staff and volunteers from Homeless Collaborative member organizations currently enter those who seek shelter at OLUMC (or a larger more central City of Dallas location if it is activated) into HMIS, and plan to eventually add this in other locations. The idea is to leverage the provision of inclement weather shelter to get persons experiencing unsheltered homelessness into the system, build relationships and trust, provide them with services, and house them.
As Ashley Brundage, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ Executive Director of Housing Stability and Senior Vice President, Community Impact, the Homeless Collaborative’s board chair said after last year’s Winter Storm Uri, “This will help the Homeless Collaborative and MDHA make measurable reductions in homelessness.”
