‘The cold is no joke.’ Keep Fresno’s warming centers open, not just when near freezing | Opinion
Leo Bardo lost both his blankets Monday afternoon. They were stolen by a fellow member of Fresno’s unhoused community hours before nighttime temperatures dipped to near freezing.
Fortunately, Bardo had options. He was among 45 individuals who spent the night inside the Ted C. Wills Community Center gymnasium, one of three warming centers open in Fresno on Monday evening.
“It was nice to sleep someplace warm,” said Bardo, who has been living on the streets for two years and typically spends the night at Courthouse Park or in a downtown parking garage. “The cold is no joke.”
Last month, the Fresno City Council adopted new management guidelines for its warming and cooling centers. For the first time, the centers are being staffed by a local nonprofit — Poverello House — with the city pledging up to $356,500 to fund operations.
Under the new guidelines, the warming centers open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on evenings when the forecast low temperature falls below 35 degrees. (In summer, they convert to cooling centers when temperatures reach 105.) Occupants are provided cots, blankets and pet cages. Food, water and coffee are also available.
While appreciative of the centers, several unhoused people and homeless advocates say the new operations guidelines are inadequate. They urged city officials to keep them open longer (from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.) and continuously until March 1.
Those needing transportation to one of the warming centers — Wills at 770 N. San Pablo, Mosqueda at 4670 E. Butler and Maxie Parks at 1802 E. California — can ride FAX buses for free. However, only service animals are allowed on city buses. Leaving most unsheltered people unable to bring their pets.
In a 7 a.m. press conference just as Bardo and others exited into the chilly morning, advocates also asked city officials to restore a warming center in north Fresno as a replacement for the discontinued Pinedale Community Center. A site near Shaw and Marty avenues is said to be in the works.
(The Pinedale Community Center is located next to Pinedale Elementary, and last year a few unhoused folks wandered onto campus during school hours. One of them, who suffers from severe mental illness, apparently exposed himself to students. As one might expect, this did not go over well in the neighborhood.)
Dez Martinez, the outspoken chair of We Are Not Invisible, pleaded with city officials to raise the temperature threshold that triggers the warming centers opening to 40 degrees.
“If you look at the history of Fresno, we don’t drop below 35 degrees more than six or seven times during the winter,” Martinez said. “So that means this place is only open six or seven times during the three coldest months. At 35 degrees, people are already freezing to death. It’s torture being out here.”
Fresno has only experienced four days of temperatures below 32 degrees since 2018, according to the National Weather Service. But 35 degrees is still pretty darned cold, especially when you’re in a tent or just wrapped in a blanket.
“There’s no other resources in Fresno to get warm,” said Arnold Minor, an elderly man who utilized the warming centers several times last winter.
Center policies need adjusting
City Councilmember Miguel Arias, a regular visitor to the three warming centers in his district, called the requests “fair and responsible” and said that adjustments to their operations will be considered.
Last winter, the warming centers were open continuously for several weeks due to the near record-setting rainfall. It hasn’t rained nearly as much this year. Still, the new operations policy doesn’t contain any language for inclement weather.
As long as Fresno’s Homeless Assistance Response Team continues to confiscate the tents, tarps, blankets and belongings of the unhoused community (which it does on a regular basis) and there are no shelter beds available (which there oftentimes isn’t), the least the city can do is provide them a warm place to sleep when it’s cold and raining.
Seems only fair.
Starting this year, Fresno adopted a policy of giving 72 hours of advance notice before the warming and cooling shelters open. This was done, according to Arias, to give people more time to pack and store their belongings.
But when a warming center may only be open one night at a time — based on the National Weather Service forecast made three days in advance — why bother packing and storing your stuff? Not when you’re going to need it the following night because the forecast is for 37 degrees rather than 34.
It would be much simpler if people could count on the centers being open when it’s cold. Rather than having to check the city’s Facebook page from two days prior.
Besides Arias, the other city official in attendance Tuesday morning was newly hired assistant city manager Michael Rogers. Whom I learned is fluent in government-ese (i.e. using many words to say very little).
However, Rogers did say one thing that caught my ear. He said: “There’s a lot more that can be done, that needs to be done and we need to be a lot more compassionate to the citizens of this city.”
I completely agree. And Fresno can start by keeping its warming shelters open, continuously and dependably, when temperatures dip below 40.
