GREELEY – On a cold November night, Jon Engrav went into a gas station and asked the people working to call the police on him.
He hadn’t done anything illegal, reported The Tribune of Greeley.
“I told them, ‘I need a warm place to stay,’” he said.
He thought jail was his only option. The police took him to the hospital, where employees recommended the new cold weather shelter, at 1428 Seventh Ave. in downtown Greeley.
Guests, most of whom are men, pick on each other as they set up their beds for the night on vinyl sleeping mats. Many store sheets and quilts in their backpacks. They eat a hot dinner that donors provide at folding tables, which are cleared afterward to make room for more mats. The small building that used to hold an American Legion is pretty snug.
Nov. 25 was Engrav’s fourth night there. He’s lucky. This cold weather shelter is the only shelter in town without a waiting list, and it almost didn’t open this year.
Catholic Charities ran a cold weather shelter inside its Guadalupe Center, 1442 11th Ave., for years. It served as an overflow area to the full-time shelter that hosts single people and small families.
To escape the snow, blustering winds and life-threatening temperatures, people would pack into the shelter’s cafeteria and meeting rooms. Usually fewer than 10 people showed up, Executive Director Enita Kearns-Hout said.
But during the past two or three years, more people needed a warm place to stay. Last year, there were nights when 27 people showed up needing somewhere to sleep. There wasn’t room for all of them, Kearns-Hout said, and the organization finally had to tell the city it wouldn’t host the seasonal shelter on its site anymore.
This is one symptom of Weld County’s growing homelessness problem. Although a few people prefer the freedom of living off the grid, many families are fighting to keep a roof over their heads. Hundreds are losing the fight. That’s becoming more common across Greeley and Weld County, and leaders are trying to conceive plans to help.
The cold weather shelter seemed like one of the easier ways to do so – compared to long-term solutions, that is. Catholic Charities partnered with the United Way, and a host of donors pitched in. After months of planning, they opened the temporary shelter inside an old American Legion on Seventh Avenue.
It holds 45 beds, and it’s a bare-bones facility. Unlike the other shelters in town, such as the Guadalupe Shelter, there is no formal intake process or social services on site. It’s simply a reprieve from the elements.
It opened the first week of November. Organizers were worried about how long it took to find a location for the shelter and figure out how to pay for it. It’s typical to get snow by mid-October, but an unusually warm autumn worked in their favor. Snow didn’t fall until November.
Even though the weather hasn’t gotten too harsh yet, the new shelter has hosted almost 40 people on some nights. Organizers believe that number will jump when winter shows up and cold snaps last longer. It doesn’t appear to be as easy an answer as they had hoped.
As the new cold weather shelter flirts with capacity, the city’s other shelters and affordable housing units have surpassed theirs. Waiting lists are getting so long, some places won’t even take applications.
As apartments get harder to come by, rent prices climb and project funding gets more competitive, more people in Weld County can’t afford a home.
Demand has increased for supportive housing at all levels, and it’s grown so fast, assistance agencies just can’t keep up.
The United Way runs the 2-1-1 hotline, where people can call and ask for help when they realize they won’t be able to make ends meet. Maybe they can’t pay the electric bill, buy a car seat or pay rent. The organization collects data from the calls to assess community needs, said Community Impact Director Melanie Falvo. Its employees also work directly with service providers, such as Greeley Transitional House, 1206 10th St.
One of the greatest – and most misunderstood – needs is emergency shelters.
“There’s this misperception that there’s enough space available,” she said.
