As more people find themselves homeless, Denton shelters see need for escape from heat
KERA | By Christian McPhate | Denton Record-Chronicle
Published August 22, 2024 at 9:33 AM CDT
Ever since the heat dome first settled over North Texas in late May, the rising number of people experiencing homelessness in Denton have struggled to find overnight relief from the heat that lingers after dark. It makes it difficult for their bodies to cool off and puts them at risk for heat-related illnesses or even death.
“While the body normally cools itself by sweating, during extreme heat, this might not be enough. In these cases, a person’s body temperature rises faster than it can cool itself down. This can cause damage to the brain and other vital organs,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns.
Denton initiated its extreme weather policy in response to the triple-digit temperatures: During business hours, public facilities such as the libraries and fire stations also act as cooling stations.
But the policy doesn’t include overnight cooling stations, despite a 20% increase in homelessness and a 93% increase in families experiencing homelessness this year compared to 2023, according to the annual point-in-time count.
Point-in-time volunteers counted 431 people living without shelter in Denton County in January 2023. That number grew to 518 people in January this year — with 424 of them in the city of Denton.
The Denton Community Shelter on Loop 288 and the Salvation Army Denton shelter on East McKinney Street are the main sources of that overnight relief. Both shelters have been at total capacity — 234 people for the community shelter, 43 for the Salvation Army — and have been struggling due to the lack of resources.
The community shelter is operated by the nonprofit Our Daily Bread, Together with Monsignor King Outreach Center.
“Since the heatwave began, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of people seeking shelter,” Jenna Edwards from Our Daily Bread said in an email Tuesday. “Our capacity is stretched, and there have been some nights when we’ve had to turn away a few people.”
Denton resident Jane Piper-Lunt and other homeless advocates have been trying to keep people from being turned away by asking the city to make overnight cooling stations available.
In a post Sunday to the Denton Water Project Facebook page, Piper-Lunt wrote that the “shelters are full and turning people away after dinner. When night time temps are above 80 degrees at night and excessive during the day, [the risk of] heat stroke is enhanced because they can’t cool off to get their core temperatures down.”
She said that advocates have tried for years to get Denton to open the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center “as a nighttime cooling/heating station like they used to, to no avail.”
Piper-Lunt said that people who are homeless are often more active at night during times of extreme heat.
While it would cost extra to keep city recreation centers or the Civic Center opened overnight, the fire stations that are used as daytime cooling stations are open 24 hours, although only one station offers seating for people to sit and cool off.
During declared states of disaster, city facilities have been used for emergency shelter but have not been used for overnight cooling, according to the city’s website.
A video by the city uploaded to YouTube in February 2021 shows the MLK Recreation Center in use as an overnight warming station during Winter Storm Uri.
“We’re providing a 24-hour warming station for people to come and sit and get warm and stay for the night,” Caroline Seward, the city’s program area manager at the time, says in the video. “We’re providing snacks and drinks and water and also electricity.”
The city’s website says the city’s two shelters have been able to accommodate those who need overnight shelter.
On Tuesday afternoon, city spokesperson Dustin Sternbeck sent recent numbers to show that the two shelters still had space available over the weekend and Monday, Aug. 17-19.
For the Denton Community Shelter:
- Saturday: 172 sleeping spaces occupied and nine available
- Sunday: 169 occupied and 12 available
- Monday: 181 occupied and five available
For the Salvation Army, the recent numbers were:
- Saturday: 25 beds occupied and 15 available
- Sunday: 26 occupied and 14 available
- Monday: 31 occupied and nine available
Edwards said the Denton Community Shelter staff is putting out 40 mats each night and using all available severe weather beds, cots and recliners, and yet the total nightly capacity maxes out at 234 people.
Numbers provided by Sternbeck offer a closer look at the cots and recliners used each night at the Loop 288 shelter:
- Saturday: 40 cots and 16 recliners
- Sunday: 39 cots and 15 recliners
- Monday: 44 cots and 17 recliners
Edwards noted that the only city funding the community shelter is Denton.
“We are still experiencing drop-offs [of people] from cities outside Denton, and we’re doing our best to track them,” Edwards said. “To date, we have not received support from other municipalities besides the city of Denton. The lack of external support has made it even more challenging to meet the increased demand.”
Despite these issues, the Denton Community Shelter hasn’t had to turn guests away from the day shelter, which functions as a cooling station and operates from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. It’s a place where people can take showers, receive meals, do laundry and access basic services such as mail, hygiene items and clothing and — more important — “escape the harsh weather,” Edwards pointed out in the Tuesday email.
It also gives them access to the many vital services Our Daily Bread offers during the day, including income and employment services and wellness support, which, Edwards said, are crucial for taking steps toward stability.
Of course, the shelter is always in need of volunteers, and it urgently needs bottled water, towels and monetary donations, which Edwards said are necessary to maintain adequate supplies and more staffing, while additional funding could allow the shelter to safely accommodate even more guests overnight.
“While our current Certificate of Occupancy allows us to hold a couple hundred more people, reaching this capacity would require significant additional funding, supplies and volunteers,” Edwards said in the email. “In the short term, increasing these resources would allow us to better serve the immediate needs of our community.”
In the long term, Edwards said, addressing Denton’s rising homeless population “will require more jobs, affordable housing, second-chance housing and employers and expanded mental health services. Mental health support is particularly crucial, as many of our guests desperately need wrap-around services as one of the first steps toward their ultimate success.
“Securing funding for these services is essential for helping our guests achieve long-term stability.”
It’s a similar situation at the Salvation Army shelter. Salvation Army Maj. Marion Durham, who oversees the Denton Corps alongside her husband, said they started offering a cooling station in the lobby area and the multipurpose room in late May, when the heat dome arrived.
They were also struggling with air-conditioning issues.
“The money runs out before the end of the month,” Durham said. “We’re trying to do more with less.”
The Salvation Army has also seen a significant increase in the number of people needing services. Since October, it has gone through 20,000 meals, Durham said.
Durham said they do their best to help people before they become homeless, because once they cross that threshold and become unsheltered, it is difficult to escape the cycle of homelessness. They can’t save money, and they find themselves without a stable renting history. They struggle to meet the three times the rent threshold that many landlords require in North Texas — especially in the city of Denton, where the median income in 2022 was $32,600, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Denton doesn’t need more shelters,” Durham said. “Homelessness is a housing problem. We need more affordable housing.”