Homeless shelters at capacity as temps drop

Fargo, N.D. (KVRR) – While you might not get frostbite walking down the street in the metro today, for Fargo’s homeless population these temps can be deadly.

“We know that homelessness is unfortunately deadly year round. Although I do think we see that a little more acutely in the wintertime and we feel that urgency a lot more.” 

And with these dangerous conditions, demand at shelters has been on the rise across Fargo-Moorhead.

“Our challenge is that as more people seek to come inside, we don’t have the capacity for them.”

Fargo Cass Public Health’s warming center was expecting to see around 50 people every night, but so far this year their average has been over 70.

“Our lack of space has been a challenge for us, and also the lack of winter gear to keep people safe outside.”

Churches United’s shelter has been at capacity all year, and the colder weather has only meant turning more people away.

“We may have a bed or two that comes open on any various day, but then we might also have 20 people on a waiting list for that bed.”

The Fargo-Moorhead Coalition to End Homelessness says that a lack of funding for preventative measures has driven an increase in homelessness across the metro.

“What we know is that a lot of the funding we had previously to do homelessness prevention work has gone away over the past couple years and is now completely gone.”

“When we aren’t able to prevent homelessness whenever possible, we’ll see more people falling into crisis.”

And they say systemic solutions are needed to stem the tide.

“It’s important for people to be knowledgeable about what we’re seeing in the community, and some of the reasons why, and to be able to communicate that to others.”

“It’s taking a look at that overall system and trying to figure out how we remove some of those roadblocks. Otherwise we’ll just continue to run into this issue where the folks coming out of the shelter or coming off the street, they’re just going to continue to run into those blocks.”