By 1:30 p.m. Dec. 22 at the Expo Center — a little over an hour after it opened for the first time as an emergency daytime warming shelter — about 25 people had come in off the streets to escape dangerously freezing temperatures.
An officer with the Springfield Police Department guided a distraught man inside and helped him sign up to be at the shelter. The man thanked the officer, shook his hand and began to cry.
Emotional scenes like that played out several times that afternoon at the Expo Center’s makeshift front desk, where volunteers helped people sign in and explained to them about the overnight shelters that are opening up inside churches all over Springfield through Saturday night.
The Hauxeda observed many people come into the Expo Center, struggling to walk and who appeared to be in excruciating pain from the cold.
“We saw several people here that had the early stages of frostbite,” said Pastor Christie Love, who helped organize the daytime shelter and was checking people in on Thursday. “We had several people that their feet were so cold and so sore that they had trouble walking.”
The other daytime drop-in center for unsheltered folks — the Veterans Coming Home Center — hit its capacity around 1 p.m. Thursday and was diverting people to the Expo Center, about three-quarters of a mile away. (Salvation Army also opened up its building as a warming shelter on Thursday, but only two people came.)
Police and case workers with Burrell Behavioral Health, too, were bringing people they found in the cold to the shelter.
‘A lot of really beautiful citizens'
“Honestly, we had just a lot of really beautiful citizens that we learned were driving around, getting people to the Expo Center because they were worried about them being cold,” Love said. “And those were not formally scheduled outreach volunteers. Those were just amazing humans.”
By the time the Expo Center shelter closed at 7 p.m. and the people were shuttled to overnight shelter sites, 79 people had come there.
At 9:30 a.m. Friday, more than 50 people were at the Expo Center.
The Expo Center will be open as an emergency warming shelter 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It is located at 635 E. St. Louis St. The shelter is not just for homeless people. It is open to anyone needing a warm place to be and has a separate space for families.
Lunch and dinner will be provided. There’s also hot coffee, drinks, snacks, games, puzzles and coloring books.
City officials have been working with Love and members of the Crisis Cold Weather Shelter committee for a week now to create emergency shelter sites before the arctic winter weather hit Thursday.
Cora Scott is the spokesperson for the City of Springfield and worked with city leaders to make it possible for the Expo Center to be used as a day shelter. Scott described the community's response to the crisis in the past few days as “truly lifesaving work.”
“(W)e were very relieved to be able to secure the Expo Center for use as a warming center. That is a small part of a an incredible community response, largely led by Pastor Christie Love, working in coordination with the Ozark Alliance to End Homelessness,” Scott wrote in an email. “Pastor Love, Michelle Garand and other members of the Alliance’s Crisis Cold Weather Shelter Committee have worked very hard in a very short timeframe to greatly increase capacity for both daytime warming and overnight shelters. It is incredibly heartwarming to see additional churches and nonprofits respond to this crisis, as well as the large number of volunteers to come forward.”
The Expo Center is owned by the city and managed by Atrium Hospitality.
Nathan Wood, the area director of sales and events for Atrium Hospitality, stopped by the Expo Center to make sure things were running smoothly and folks had what they needed.
In addition to the space, Atrium donated the large coffee bar — a hit with people coming in from the cold.
“It’s part of being a good member of the community and taking care of those in need,” Wood said. “We want to build awareness of the great things Springfield has to offer.”
The decision to open the Expo Center as an emergency daytime shelter was announced Wednesday evening.
Several churches, organizations open overnight shelters through Saturday
The existing crisis cold weather shelter sites, which are housed inside church buildings and open on nights when the temperature hits 32 or colder, have been at or near capacity in recent weeks. And guests can’t stay at those shelter sites during the day, so coming up with a daytime shelter was a critical need.
Knowing there are many more unsheltered people living in camps or vehicles who had been “toughing it out” but would probably seek shelter during this week’s extreme weather, several faith leaders agreed to open their buildings Thursday through Saturday nights.
“It went great, really smooth,” Pastor Love said Friday morning. “No issues at the Expo Center. We had no issues at the shelters. We had outreach teams out until about 1 o’clock this morning and transported about 42 to the overflow shelters.
“I called (police) dispatch last night and just let them know that we still had open shelter beds, which was what our prayer was — that there was space for people,” she said. “I know (Springfield Police Department) brought several to open beds.
“Everyone who asked for help, got help,” Love continued. “Everyone who asked for a shelter bed was given that.”
How many people stayed at the overnight shelters Thursday:
- East Sunshine Church of Christ was full with 50 men
- Asbury United Methodist Church was full with 35 people
- Grace United Methodist Church had 11 women
- Unity of Springfield Church was full with 25 people
- Sacred Heart Catholic Church had 15 men
- The Connecting Grounds was full with four families (20 people)
Of the new shelter sites that opened through this weekend as a response to the winter storm:
- Brentwood Christian Church had 14 people
- Salvation Army’s Harbor House had 13 people
- Eden Village’s Community Center had 15 people
- St. John’s UCC building at 1110 N. Main St. had 7 people
- St. John’s Episcopal had 9 people
- The Venues at 425 W. Walnut St. had 13 people
- The Venues at 2616 E. Battlefield Road had 29 people
- The YouthConnect Center had 2 unaccompanied teenagers
- National Avenue Christian Church had four families (20 people)
Total: 278 people sought overnight shelter Thursday
‘One little mistake and you're dead'
A man named David was among those who had been toughing it out in a tent this winter, but Thursday’s drop in temperature was too much for him. He came to the Expo Center Thursday with plans to catch a ride to an overnight shelter — something he doesn’t normally do, even when it’s cold.
Asked what led him to seek shelter, David tapped on the weather app on his cell phone to bring up the current forecast.
“One little mistake and you’re dead,” he said, referring to the cold temperatures.
Sitting nearby, a man named Ray Hicks nodded. Hicks said he likes to drink sometimes, but he knows drinking alcohol in these below freezing temperatures can be deadly.
(Sometimes people drink alcohol in the cold because it makes them feel warmer. But it actually decreases core body temperature and increases the risk of hypothermia.)
“I like to drink,” Hicks said. “But if I fall out in this s**t, I’m not going to wake up. They (city leaders who approved opening the Expo Center) know people die out here.”
Hicks said he is very grateful to have the option of coming to the Expo Center these next few days.
The only other daytime drop-in center for the unsheltered community is the Veterans Coming Home Center. Several of the people at the Expo Center Thursday told the Daily Citizen they don’t like to go to the Vets Center for various reasons, including fights, arguments with staff and crime. Hicks was among them.
“This is the best place I’ve been to,” he said, smiling. “There is space. People don’t like to be put in a corner.”
Darlene Steele, who’s been staying at Safe to Sleep for the past two weeks, also came to the Expo Center Thursday. Steele was grateful to have a warm place to be during the day, but expressed frustration that she (and everyone else) has to shuffle around from place to place just to stay warm.
“It’s exhausting,” Steele said. “We should be able to go to a place and be there. It’s that constant moving. You have to take everything with you.”
Safe to Sleep is a year-round overnight shelter for women. It is a Council of Churches program that is housed inside the gymnasium at Pathways United Methodist Church.
Steele said she recently became homeless due to a “series of unfortunate events.”
“I’ve lived in Springfield since 1987 and that didn’t prevent me from ending up in a shelter,” Steele said. “Nobody is immune from a series of unfortunate incidents and landing in a shelter. You hear people say they are one paycheck away. That is a lot of people. There are a lot of people living in cars.”
Nearby, volunteer Shahad Sadeq helped guests choose from the different coloring books, games and puzzles someone had donated.
Sadeq said it was her first time to volunteer in this sort of capacity, but she responded when her church sent out an emergency request.
What would Jesus do?
Asked why she wanted to volunteer, Sadeq responded: “Jesus.”
“If Jesus were here, what would he do? He’d be here,” she said. “Well, he wouldn’t be in here. He’d be walking around, hugging people and telling them to come here.”
