ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - A homeless woman was found dead right outside the St. Louis City Hall parking lot Tuesday morning.
The City of St. Louis confirmed the woman found dead on Clark Avenue is unhoused, however a cause of death is not known at this time.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department do not suspect foul play in this death.
"Last night, excess City-funded beds were available to accommodate unhoused individuals," said Ryan Sheehan, spokesperson for the Department of Human Services. "The City of St. Louis Department of Human Services and shelter providers will continue to work together to ensure that we can fill as many inclement weather shelter beds as possible in the days ahead."
However, Audra Youmans, a volunteer with the nonprofit group Winter Outreach pushes back, saying while beds might have been available they are not easily accessible.
"Those were only empty because it took more than 90 minutes to get anyone to answer any referrals to those spaces," said Youmans. "Many of those went unanswered throughout the night."
"It was taking us more than 90 minutes to get an approval to take anyone. At that point, we're just shoving people into other spaces, when they were already over capacity."
Youmans says tensions can rise in an overcrowded shelter and a flu virus going around only adds to the problem
According to Youmans, the process of getting a homeless individual into one of these beds involves them contacting Adam Pearson, the City's Director of Human Services, with the homeless individual's information.
She says communication broke down between Pearson and the shelters.
"[Pearson] contacts the shelter with their [homeless individual's] name and birthday to get approval to send them over and he wasn't even getting a response for more than 90 minutes," said Youmans. "He was absolutely working with us, but [the shelters] weren't even answering the Director of Human Services."
The cause is being looked into by the medical examiner's office.
KMOX has followed up with a spokesperson for the City for further elaboration on the long wait times on the phone.