Hundreds of people experiencing homelessness are taking advantage of warm places to sleep this week as overnight temperatures dip below freezing.
At the city’s shelters alone an estimated 550 people stayed overnight Monday. But that is just a fraction of the more than 5,300 people estimated to be experiencing homelessness in the Austin-Travis County area, according to data from the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition.
Several faith-based groups have tried to step up to help house people on nights when it gets really cold, navigating the challenging logistics to get a shelter up and running.
At St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in North Austin, it took more than a dozen volunteers to convert the community center into an overnight shelter with enough room for about 30 people. The church started opening its door to people experiencing homelessness earlier this year.
Pastor Ashley Cuellar said the church hopes to serve unhoused neighbors that might not be able to make it to one of the city’s shelters.
“We’d been talking about opening up a shelter for a while,” Cuellar said. “Back in the day when we had more members, St. Mark’s would house immigrant families for a week at a time. Sometime last year we thought about how we can specifically house people overnight when it's cold.”
She said it wouldn’t be possible without the help of several church volunteers and organizations, including Austin Mutual Aid, who helped provide blankets, pillows and even food.
Anne Smith has been going to St. Mark’s since 2020 and said the project is a group effort. Each day she comes in to volunteer and there’s plenty to do.
In the mornings, she cooks breakfast, helps clean up and puts away cots. Sometimes she takes home dirty blankets, clothes and pillow cases to wash. When she comes back in the afternoon, it's straight back to it.
“On a day like this, we come in with high energy,” Smith said as she prepared the center Monday evening before a winter storm warning went into effect.
She started to get pillows and blankets ready and organized them to be distributed.
“Every day we sanitize the pillows, bring in fresh pillow cases or T-shirts, whichever we use for the night,” she said. “Then we get them all set up. We generally put them back in their bags covered and ready to go for the night.”
For a few hours, the volunteers organize and greet people coming in with donations. People seeking shelter don't register until 7 p.m. but they can wait in a lounge at the front of the center, where they can stay warm and drink coffee and water.
While they wait, some people even help out with the process. Donna Reagor, who is staying the night, helped anywhere that she could. She helped fold and organize blankets and warm gear, including beanies and gloves. She wiped down kitchen counters, dinner tables and bathrooms.
“Since they started this I've been coming here to stay overnight, and I just started helping out,” Reagor said. “They get a little system going and every morning me and my husband we get up and help clean up. We’ll spray the bathrooms down and mop and sweep and stuff.”
She said it's just the way she was raised.
“It’s just me,” she said. “Helping people. Give my time to the Lord and get something back … so I help out.”
When it's time for diner prep, more volunteers make their way into the center. Good Work Austin provided pre-packaged chicken meals with macaroni and cheese and a roll. There was also a warm chili dinner and even a vegan option. They just needed to be reheated.
Microwaves buzzed and dinged. Volunteers, including Reagor and handful of others, started pulling out cots and tables for people to sit and eat.
At around 7 p.m. registration begins. Cuellar started helping sign people in. Everyone is given a pillow and a blanket and a warm meal.
“We’ve got the most tonight of people staying over,” Smith said. “When you tell them it's a bed and a hot meal that is very becoming to these guys who otherwise would be on the street.”
Cuellar said this is what the ministry was meant to do, and they will continue to do so until temperatures reach above 35 degrees.
“We do this because as followers of Christ we are called to love our neighbor, and shelter those without a home, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, out of love,” she said.
Cuellar said she hopes that any time there is weather that could be life-threatening the church will open the shelter. A goal only achievable with donations and help from volunteers and organizations.
But for some Austinites, going into shelter may not be preferable — even in frigid temperatures.
Pamela Bryant with Walking by Faith Prison Ministries serves unhoused Austinites who don’t, won’t or can’t seek shelter at city or unofficial shelters. Most days, Bryant visits camps across the city, delivering tents, blankets and homemade meals (baked chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes, a piece of lemon cake and cornbread this week.)
Bryant said people may have been previously incarcerated and may not want to stay in a group shelter. They may not be comfortable in a co-ed shelter, like one of the people Bryant helped recently. Bryant said the woman went to a shelter and when she came back to her camp all her belongings, including pictures of her children, were gone — either cleared out or stolen, she wasn’t sure.
“That was her memory,” she said. “[This] stuff is important to people, and you hear a lot of people say, ‘Oh, that’s just trash.’ It might look like somebody else’s trash to us, but it might be somebody’s treasure.”
Bryant said she’ll be out all week, delivering food and supplies, as well as giving folks ride to shelters, if they need.
Andrew Weber contributed to this story.
