With baby due on New Year's Day, couple worries about finding shelter
David West and Briana Thomas met last October on the streets downtown, and they fell in love. Thomas is now pregnant with their child, a little girl they plan to name Denyah Ariel West.
The couple worries they have nowhere to take their baby girl after she is born. She's due on New Year's Day, and they're without housing.
Thomas and West are on a waiting list with the Mid-Alabama Coalition for the Homeless, but they do not know how long it will take to get a place.
For now, they spend their coldest nights at the warming center, which allows people without homes a place to stay when temperatures dip below 35 degrees.
More:Montgomery warming center available to all on cold nights
On nights when the center is not open, West said they sleep in a car or occasionally buy a night at a hotel. They aren't allowed to stay together in shelters. At times they feel desperate.
“If people don’t end up hearing your story, you won’t get nowhere," West said, explaining why he and Thomas are sharing theirs. They ask anyone who can help them to contact Christina Thornton, who runs the warming center.
West said he refuses to feel ashamed that he and Thomas are homeless. “Everybody struggles. Everybody goes through hard times," he said.
Latisha Taylor, who works at the warming center, called the experience both eye-opening and heartwarming.
She said homelessness can happen to anyone.
“In the blink of an eye, it could be us," Taylor said.
Mark Wilson spent his first night in the warming center Sunday. He found out about the center by word of mouth. On Saturday, Wilson said he stayed in a house that was halfway burnt down. It was cold and wet. But at the center, he got a hot meal, a safe place to stay, a shower.
“I won’t be cold tonight," Wilson said.
Wilson has been homeless for the past couple of weeks. He started out in Arkansas and then traveled to Florida before coming to Montgomery to go to rehab for his substance abuse problem. He said the warming center is a blessing.
The warming center is a godsend for those who come in from the cold.
So when the center was ransacked on Nov. 8 — vandals damaged the building, stole items and even cut up toothpaste containers, squirting the toothpaste across the floor — Thornton took action. She bought cameras to catch anyone who tries that again.
It was, she said, "just hatefulness."
The warming center has been open for three years, and previously no one had ever done anything like this, Thornton said. Far more often, people choose to be kind at the warming center.
On Sunday, Steph Smithson unloaded bags and bags of clothes and then helped to fold and organize them so that anyone who needs clothes can get a free pair.
“I like being able to help," Smithson said.
Alex Gladden is the Montgomery Advertiser's public safety reporter. She can be reached at agladden@gannett.com or 479-926-9570.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: With baby due on New Year's Day, couple worries about finding shelter
