Homeless Shelters Offer Additional Beds Amid Cold Weather In The Metro

With temperatures below freezing and more cold weather on the way, overnight shelters for people experiencing homelessness are filling to capacity.

The Homeless Alliance opened a new overnight shelter in November, and the response has been overwhelming.

"We have 300 beds available every night from November through March," Meghan Mueller with the Oklahoma City Homeless Alliance said.

Each bed represents a person who might have been forced to sleep outside in the cold.

"We have somewhere for people to be 24 hours a day, which we're really grateful for," Mueller added.

She said their team didn't realize just how essential their new shelter would be.

"We were actually thinking we might only need about 200 beds on a nightly basis," she explained. "But we're actually seeing all 300 beds are being utilized pretty regularly, which just indicates that this was something our city really needed."

"They have helped me through everything," Phil Booker, who is staying with the Homeless Alliance, said. "It takes away from being in the streets and dealing with everything."

It’s a place to escape the cold and start getting back on his feet.

"It has the most significant impact throughout the whole area, this place right here," he said.

But, it all starts with having a place to stay warm.

"Being homeless is not something that we want for any of our neighbors at any time of year, but especially when it's really cold," Mueller said. "It's uncomfortable. It can also be life-threatening."

So the Homeless Alliance, along with its city partners, begin preparing long before the temperatures drop.

"The community's cold weather contingency plan kicks in when the temperature drops below 32 degrees,” Mueller said.

The contingency plan includes extra beds at shelters around the city. The graphic below shows how many beds each shelter has, and the bus routes to get to them.