DENVER — The sidewalks outside of Denver Rescue Mission's Lawrence Street facility are staked out with people waiting for their next warm meal.
With temperatures expected to plunge Wednesday night into Thursday morning, Stephen Hinkel said the Denver Rescue Mission is taking steps to prepare more meals and make more room for overnight guests.
"We are ready to open this space up to emergency shelter with emergency mats for an extra 50 individuals in this space downtown," said Hinkel.
For the last year-and-a-half, Hinkel said services have been stretched thin.
But he believes a change in Denver's winter sheltering plan could help alleviate some of that stress.
"Lowering that threshold for opening emergency shelters does help organizations like ours...the resources, when the cold weather does come, are now more available," Hinkel explained.
Because of a decline in arrivals from the Southern Border, Denver is able to turn two shelters previously used to house immigrants into cold weather shelters this winter.
In September, the city announced that three around-the-clock emergency shelters would now open when the forecasted low was 25 degrees or 2 inches of snow.
"It's truly a life and limb measure to help save lives. And you know, protect people that are living outside from frostbite, hypothermia or worse," said Derek Woodbury with Denver's Dept. of Housing Stability.
The previous threshold for a shelter to open was 20 degrees, and visitors could only stay in the facility from the evening to the following morning.
Woodbury said the change will increase the availability of cold weather shelters from 40 days per season to more than 80.
"It’s only a five-degree difference, but that degree difference can be the difference between somebody getting frostbite or being in a bed. And we’d rather have people in a bed on colder nights than staying outside on a park bench," said Hinkel.
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