As the arctic air comes closer to San Antonio, all of the homeless organizations will begin coordinating their response.
SAN ANTONIO — As San Antonio prepares for its first blast of cold polar air next week, local homeless organizations are gearing up for the colder weather.
It’s pretty typical for them to start coordinating this time of year, according to Terri Behling, director of communications for Haven for Hope.
“We had a little bit of cold weather a couple days here and there in November and December, but January, February is when we’re really prepared the most for it or talking about it the most, making sure that we’re stocked up,” she said.
Stocked up with colder weather essentials, like coats, jackets, blankets and socks. Behling stated that one of the largest challenges of being in Texas is with the weather flipping from warm to cold, many of those that experience homelessness who had coats and jackets tend to misplace them, or leave them because they don’t have anywhere to store them.
“What we’re going to be doing is taking inventory in our warehouse, make sure that any coats and gloves and hats that we have on hand, we’re going to make sure that our clients have access to those and that they have them for when the cold weather comes,” Behling said. “But also make sure that our outreach teams are equipped to have those items hand warmers, blankets, sleeping bags, different things in their trucks as well so they can hand those out.”
The day of the cold snap Behling explains, Haven for Hope staff try to let as many people come in as they can.
“We have been operating over capacity for quite some time,” she said. “It’s going to be a day to day process of continuous monitoring the situation. In the past, we’ve had an influx of, you know, maybe 50 to 100 people. I think the biggest influx we had was back in 2021 when we had snow and ice.”
As the arctic air comes closer to San Antonio, all of the homeless organizations will begin coordinating their response.
“If not the end of this week, very early next week, we’ll be putting some plans in place and the city will, you know, look into activating their winter weather protocols,” Behling stated.
Haven for Hope is asking for donations, of coats, jackets, gloves, jeans, new socks, new underwear and any other cold weather essentials people can donate. For clothes, they need sizes of all ages.
“We have 92 family dorms that are always full, and then we operate a family emergency services program where we can accommodate up to. We’ve gotten as high as 80 additional families,” Behling said. “I think the San Antonio community can do a lot for us by just finding ways to donate items, find ways to volunteer. I know we’ll probably have, the day shelters running and extended hours.”
On Saturday, Jan. 11, Haven for Hope will host their “Share the Warmth Donation Drive.” It’s a one-day drive. The community is asked to come drop off donations between 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1 Haven for Hope Way, San Antonio, TX, 78207. Last year they collected 2000 items. This year, their goal is to collect 3000.