DALLAS (1080 KRLD)- A building in Fair Park is set up with 900 cots to provide homeless people a place to stay during the upcoming cold weather. The next few days are forecast to be the coldest so far this winter in North Texas, with the National Weather Service saying temperatures could drop as low as 11 degrees Tuesday morning, and the area could stay below freezing from Sunday morning through midday Wednesday.
The Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions has been working with the non-profits, OurCalling and Austin Street Center, to set up Grand Place with a place where unhoused people can stay.
"It's basically wall-to-wall cots," says Austin Street Center Chief Executive Daniel Roby. "We are preparing for every person who is homeless to come here during the bitter cold nights we're expecting over the next four or five days."
Roby says Dallas Police are providing security; Dallas Fire Rescue will be on-site to help in a medical emergency. He says Texas Baptist Men are providing meals.
"We are prepared for an extended event. We hope that doesn't happen. We hope we don't reach capacity in this building, but if we do, we'll open up another one," he says.
More information about Austin Street Center is available at https://austinstreet.org/ .
Roby says non-profits are working together to make sure people know the shelter is available. OurCalling is sending texts to people in its database to warn people who have used the organization's services before about the cold. Shuttle buses will provide transportation from shelters across the city.
"We've built relationships and have a lot of relational equity within the homeless community," says OurCalling CEO Wayne Walker.
Walker says the organization has a network of 10,000 people, and OurCalling will send messages to people letting them know about the shelter at Fair Park as well as warming centers in communities neighboring Dallas.
"The worst thing that can happen is someone shows up at someone's tent with a stack of firewood and a case of water and says, 'I hope it gets better,' and they decide to stay there," he says. "That case of water's going to freeze, that firewood's going to run out, and their needs are way beyond that. Here, we have medical providers, acute care, Dallas Fire Rescue for emergency care, we have North Texas Behavioral Health, we have agencies here who can not only help them today, they can help them get off the streets for the rest of their life."
In 2023, Walker says OurCalling helped 1,387 people exit homelessness. He says the non-profit has developed software to help an individual develop the best possible strategy to find permanent housing, whether that is mental health care, drug abuse treatment, job training or another issue.
Walker says OurCalling's campus works to help people develop a sense of community.
"We have meals, we have showers, we have food, you can charge your phone, you can see doctors while we're trying to get you off the streets. That community aspect is so important," he says. North Texas Behavioral Health is providing mental health screenings, and Watermark Health is providing checkups at Fair Park.
More information about OurCalling is available at https://www.ourcalling.org/ . People can also use OurCalling's app to find the items most in need now or report a homeless camp. Volunteers will then go to the camp to warn people about the weather and encourage them to head to a shelter.
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