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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

St Vinnys revises warming center policy

Jeff Conroy of St. Vincent de Paul's has announced that the organization is raising the temperature level for raising its warming center, from 25 degrees to 28 degrees:

There has been a lot of concern about St Vincent de Paul North Idaho’s 7 year Warming Center policy about open our doors to the Center when the temperature fall below 25 degrees. In making this decision it was painful because we feel that anything below 32 is too cold and we are in the “people” business. But we are self-funded. We hold events throughout the year to help fund our Center. Our Center DOES NOT receive funding from government agencies like Spokane. These funds pay for staff, washing sleeping bags, buying sleeping bags, tents, food, heat, water, and anything else needed to support the Center that is not covered by donations.

We’ve been asked “why don’t you just have volunteers run it”? Because working 12 hour shifts from 7:00pm to 7:00am is very stressful on anyone, we operate our Center with staff and have volunteers supporting to ensure enough coverage during long stretches of cold. We are always looking for donations of food, and clothing.

After conversations with local officials we will raise our temperature to 28 degrees effective immediately, which will add average 36 more nights to our season (based on 2014 temperatures). Daily the decision will be made to open or not based on the temperatures. More here.



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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