Greeley, Colo., Saved Lives From Cold With Collaboration

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(TNS) — It got about as cold as it gets around Greeley earlier this month.

With temperatures staying below zero for several days, most hunkered down inside and waited out the worst of the weather.

And, thanks in large part to the coordination by the city of Greeley and local organizations, even those without a home had a warm place to stay during the cold snap. That resulted in the best-case scenario: No deaths due to the cold were reported in Greeley.

“The biggest thing in any event like this is ensuring the coordination and communication is happening regarding what resources are available,” Greeley City Manager Raymond Lee said. “And where do we need to step in and help if resources aren’t available.”

With temperatures hitting as low as -28 degrees on the worst night, those resources were as vital as ever.

Lee said the city opened the Greeley Recreation Center, 651 10th Ave., and the Family FunPlex, 1501 65th Ave., as warming centers to get people out of the cold. The city also offered free rides to one of those centers, as well as any of the other cold weather resources.

Other resources included the United Way Cold Weather Shelter, the Guadalupe Center and the Salvation Army. The first two were open 24 hours, and the Salvation Army opened from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. for daytime warming and feeding.

United Way Vice President of Community Impact Ernest Cienfuegos-Baca said everyone involved prepared for the cold weather, making the efforts possible.

United Way met with city officials before winter even set in to make sure they were prepared, Cienfuegos-Baca said. Then, when the worst weather did hit, it was just a matter of hashing out the final details.

“The city notified all the parties, saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got some weather coming in,'” Cienfuegos-Baca said. “‘Although it doesn’t trigger a Red Cross emergency, we probably need to talk about how we can support our brothers and sisters that are out on the streets.”

That meant opening up as many beds in the United Way Cold Weather Shelter as possible. The shelter typically operates with 60 beds, but a city fire marshall approved an expansion to 70 beds ahead of the cold snap, Cienfuegos-Baca said.

To open up even more beds, United Way identified anybody eligible for other programs and set that ball in motion.

Thanks to a grant received on Jan. 1, United Way of Weld County was able to move several people into bridge housing — in this case meaning hotels — while staff worked toward a more permanent solution.

That included anybody with housing vouchers or people who were working and in a position to afford housing with a little help. It also included anyone with disabilities and seniors older than 60.

“They could be in a wheelchair, or they use a walker,” Cienfuegos-Baca said. “We don’t want them having to walk around the community in the snow or ice.”

Through those efforts, Cienfuegos-Baca said, the cold weather shelter was able to open up 35 additional beds.

The shelter never reached capacity, maintaining a handful of open beds during even the busiest times. But without all the efforts made ahead of time, Cienfuegos-Baca said, they would have likely had to turn people away every night.

“It would have been closer to 100 people,” Cienfuegos-Baca said. “Well over capacity.”

During the coldest period, Squad 1 was also on-site to tend to anybody coming in from the cold.

Squad 1 is a collaborative effort between North Range Behavioral Health, North Colorado Health Alliance and the Greeley Fire Department. It is a first-response vehicle staffed by a paramedic, a community health care manager and one of North Range’s mental health crisis counselors.

“This was just one example of how collaborating really met the needs of a community,” Cienfuegos-Baca said. “I consider freezing weather a crisis when you’ve got folks sleeping outside.”

Lee echoed Cienfuegos-Baca’s thoughts, crediting several city departments — primarily Homeless and Housing Solutions and the Office of Emergency Management — for the lack of weather-related deaths.

“Our ability to perform complex and independent functions under extreme conditions was nothing short of remarkable,” Lee said. “Especially during an event like this to make sure there were no tragedies.”

The United Way Cold Weather Shelter is located at 870 28th St. in Greeley. Along with giving shelter from the cold, the Housing Navigation Center assists in finding housing and connects people in need to other resources.