Overflow shelter hopes to open every night this winter in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - The people who operate homeless shelters in Cedar Rapids hope to have the overflow winter open every night this coming winter.

This year, the overflow shelter opened only when the temperature dropped below 32 degrees.

That temperature requirement meant the overflow shelter was open 102 nights between Nov. 1 and March 31.

During that time, 321 homeless individuals used the shelter, according to Phoebe Trepp, executive director of Willis Dady Homeless Services.

The Linn County Continuum of Care, she said at a Monday evening event in Greene Square, hopes to have the overflow shelters open every night from a yet-to-be-determined date in November through March.

'We thought that would make it much easier for people seeking shelter,” Trepp said. 'They don't have to wait and see how cold it's going to get.”

To have the shelter open every night, Trepp said, the Community Overflow Weather Shelter System will need to increase its budget from $30,000 to at least $40,000.

Trepp said organizers also are searching for a larger shelter building near downtown Cedar Rapids where Green Square Meals and churches provide food in the evening.

Cedar Rapids police Sgt. Michelle Omar said the overflow shelter gives officers a place to homeless individuals instead of taking them to jail in order to keep them off the streets on winter nights.

'Sometimes jail isn't the best place for a lot of these people, but our hands are tied,” she said. 'We don't want them out when it's snowy, icy, freezing, but where else can they go? The shelter has provided that.”

Kristine Harris, shelter manager for the overflow system, said she knows some shelter regulars were taken to jail on nights this past winter when temperatures were above 32, though it was still too cold for someone to be sleeping outside.

Harris said it costs $13 per person to house people in the shelter overnight - far less than a night in jail.

'It only takes one bad event in someone's night to take them from being housed to being homeless,” she said. 'It would certainly be a tragedy to be out there on your own on a night when the temperature drops below freezing without a warm place to sleep.”

The Linn County Continuum of Care includes health, shelter and prevention service providers who help low-income individuals. It includes such organizations as the Abbe Center, Catholic Worker House, Cedar Rapids Police Department, Cedar Rapids churches, Linn County Community Services, Willis Dady and Waypoint.

' 321

: People served winter of 2016-17

' 102

: Nights open, November to March

' $13

: Cost per person

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