Shelters in Colorado Springs, Colo., ‘Saved Lives and Limbs’

(TNS) – Along with record-setting dangerously cold temperatures, January’s arctic freeze brought the first real-time test of El Paso County’s new coordinated response for sheltering homeless people during extreme weather conditions.

The process “saved lives and limbs,” organizers said, but some people said they have concerns about security at the pop-up warming shelters.

The goal of safely shuttling indoors as many people who live on the streets as possible over the course of the five-day, four-night disaster declaration from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was accomplished, said Andrew Notbohm, regional emergency management and recovery director for the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management.

He and other agency leaders addressed Colorado Springs City Council during this week’s informal public meeting and also participated in a closed-door debriefing to review what worked and what didn’t.

Under a new system created by Steve Johnson, community and public health administrator of the Colorado Springs Fire Department, and facilitated by Notbohm’s office, public health, fire and police departments, homeless service organizations and houses of worship carried out the organized strategy.

When combined, the nearly 30-year-old Springs Rescue Mission, the city’s primary homeless shelter that operates 24/7, and the two-year-old Hope COS, which uses churches and other locations for short-term sheltering when the temperature drops below 20 degrees, averaged serving 700 people a night during the Jan. 12-16 polar vortex, Notbohm told City Council.

The Salvation Army’s Family Hope Center also had up to 186 bunkbeds available for family units and 12 beds for military veterans.

“People really stepped up, and we heard so many positive stories,” Notbohm said.

Until now, the city had no coordinated response for weather crises, Johnson said. “A few of us in the fire department would try to find resources to get people to shelter,” he said.

Hope COS formed in February of 2022 to assist people who are homeless, or reentering society after incarceration or addicted. After a homeless man froze to death in November of 2022, the organization expanded last year by opening experimental warming sites whenever the temperature dips below 20 degrees. Hope COS also transports people from tents and trails to the indoor spaces.

The alternative shelters appear to be making a difference in the community.

Hypothermia was a factor in the deaths of 21 people in 2022 and 14 people in 2023 — a one-third decrease, according to the El Paso County Coroner’s Office.

“A couple of the biggest challenges are how do we get this population — the unhoused and most vulnerable — to accept help, how do we create shelter structures to have access to meet those people where they are at, and how do we balance the safety of the individuals and the surrounding neighborhood and the community,” Notbohm said. “That’s part of what we’re going to address, by having more training and building capacity through the nonprofits.”

One homeless man died during January’s cold snap but not from exposure to the elements, said Melissa Oskin, founder of Hope COS.

The man collapsed and stopped breathing while coming off a trail and getting on a bus to be transported to a warming shelter. He could not be revived, she said, and he’d had previous health issues that likely contributed to his death.

The new protocol for emergency sheltering during extreme adverse weather has drawn criticism from some.

Springs Rescue Mission, which has 450 beds and can accommodate hundreds more with floor mats, had empty beds during the freeze, City Councilor David Leinweber noted at Monday’s council meeting.

“For a number of reasons, some people don’t want to go to Springs Rescue Mission,” Notbohm acknowledged.

Several homeless people who addressed council during its Feb. 13 meeting complained that the organization is too institutionalized, has unworkable rules and has created an environment that’s difficult to want to be in.

Springs Rescue Mission is defined as a low-barrier shelter, meaning people can come into the large complex having used drugs or alcohol but “they can’t have substances or weapons on campus for the safety of everybody,” Travis Williams, chief development officer, told council.

Locations under the Hope COS umbrella used a different model.

The Chinook Center, a progressive community space for social, economic and environmental justice, and several local churches that provided emergency shelter operated on a “no questions asked” system and did not search people’s backpacks.

“We do not check bags; if we see any visible weapons or drugs, we’ll confiscate the weapon for the duration of the shelter or ask them to put it away if it’s a pocketknife,” Oskin said.

“We rarely see substances inside the shelters, and if we do we explain there’s no drug use inside. People have been very respectful of that and pack their things back up.”

Thus, clients could have had weapons and drugs on them but could not use them inside the facilities.

However, one man brandished a knife at one of the locations, Oskin said, and police were called.

“Our volunteers are well-trained,” she said. “The gentleman was arrested, and no one got hurt.”

A rumor that someone had pulled a gun at a warming shelter was incorrect, Oskin said, as that never happened.

The city currently does not provide funding to Hope COS. If the city is going to rubberstamp alternative methods of sheltering, it needs to have say in ensuring safety, Leinweber said Monday from the dais.

“You wonder if we’re creating a safe environment for the population that’s just wanting to have a good night’s sleep,” he said.

City Councilor Michelle Talarico said she believes it’s unfair to say that Hope COS or any other nonprofits that opened their doors during the cold weather event “welcomed guns,” as she thought was being suggested.

“I believe they think a lot of it as a low-barrier way to save lives,” she said.

Said Leinweber: “I understand those churches are doing what they can to protect human life, and I’m all for that. I’m also concerned for the safety when there’s that kind of access to drugs and weapons.”

Going forward, Notbohm said, the emergency management office will “provide guidance to the spontaneous shelters” regarding safety.

“It goes to one of our improvements, that if the city is going to support a shelter here we need to have security measures in place so there’s no violence or harm happening, for the safety of the staff, people using the shelters and the surrounding community,” Notbohm said.

Springs Rescue Mission receives about $500,000 from the city toward its operations annually. The organization enacts a “harm reduction” system when temperatures fall below 20 degrees, which means people who have been temporarily suspended from the shelter for violating certain rules can seek shelter at Springs Rescue Mission on those nights, said Williams.

Those who commit serious violations on the campus, such as assault or sexual assault, are banned from Springs Rescue Mission.

Oskin said she was told 160 people were not allowed to stay at Springs Rescue Mission in January, along with another 50 who would be turned away for being unable to care for their bodies independently or having medical problems such as body lice, scabies or other contagious conditions.

“We ended up treating people for those things when they were in our shelter, so they were able to go back to Springs Rescue Mission,” she said.

Hope COS sheltered 100 of the 160 people that were not allowed at Springs Rescue Mission during the 10 days that the organization opened its temporary centers in the first half of January.

After the debriefing process, Oskin said Springs Rescue Mission has committed to being more transparent to the public about who the shelter can and cannot accommodate during severe weather.

Several homeless people said during council’s Feb. 13 meeting that they see a need for alternative shelters.

“We did lose a lot of our family members. People that we loved and would love to be here right now with us. But they froze to death, and that’s no way to freaking go out like that, man,” resident Barbara Berry told council. “We all need to work together and pool together as one.”

Housing advocate and community organizer Max Kronstadt described how after learning that Hope COS was struggling with finding space for stopgap setups, he and another volunteer rallied the Chinook Center to become a warming shelter. In just a few hours, Kronstadt said, people came in from the cold, and volunteers brought blankets, food and donations to buy sleeping mats.

“It worked, we had a calm environment that was relatively incident-free,” he said. “We had 25 people in there 24/7 for those five days. It demonstrated the need for other types of shelter.”

The National Weather Service in Pueblo announced that Colorado Springs had set a record low temperature of minus 8 degrees on Jan. 14, with subzero wind chills further affecting exposure to the elements.

People arrived “blue, cold to the touch and unable to stop shivering,” said Samantha Christiansen, president of the Chinook Center.

“We gave every single thing as a community that we could muster because people were walking in our doors about to die,” she said. “They were walking in a city of this size, with this budget, for cold weather that was not a surprise.”

The city needs to do a better job with the issue, several City Council members told the group at the Feb. 13 meeting. “There’s no doubt about that,” Leinweber said.

Gazette reporter Breeanna Jent contributed to this article.

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