Frigid nights bring challenges to Okaloosa County homeless shelters. Here's how to help

Severely cold nights are presenting additional challenges for the two nonprofit homeless shelters in Okaloosa County.

One Hopeful Place (OHP), at 1564 Percy L. Coleman Road in Fort Walton Beach, serves the south part of the county while the Crestview Area Shelter for the Homeless (CASH), at 120 Duggan Ave. in Crestview, serves the north.

During inclement winter weather, defined as 40 degrees or below, both facilities provide temporary shelter for people who need it.

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More volunteers and supplies are needed at each facility to help provide services.

One Hopeful Place

The cold night shelter at OHP was open on Monday, and based on the weather forecast it likely will be open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights as well, shelter manager Donna Morgan said.

So far this winter, OHP has sheltered people escaping the cold on about a dozen nights, with a high of 26 people on one of those nights, she said.

The folks leaving the cold behind are in addition to the 50 men who live in One Hopeful Place’s men’s housing and the 11 women who live in its women’s housing.

The people who receive cold night shelter consist of both couples and individuals, said Morgan, who added that One Hopeful Place doesn’t serve children.

“Because of COVID and being short-staffed, all of the men and women who live at the shelter have helped operate the cold night shelter,” she said.

One Hopeful Place has a staff of four, including Morgan. She said while she has enough cold night shelter volunteers to work from 4-8 p.m., handling tasks such as serving food and signing people up for showers, she needs more volunteers for the 8 p.m.-8 a.m. time frame.

While local churches provide enough food for OHP, the facility is always in need of paper towels, toilet paper, household cleaning products, dish soap and laundry soap, Morgan said.

Those who want to pitch in can call Morgan at 850-376-5386. The shelter’s website is at https://onehopefulplace.org.

Crestview Area Shelter for the Homeless

The Crestview Area Shelter for the Homeless also has opened its cold night shelter on numerous nights so far this winter. It typically sees anywhere from one to six people on a cold night, CASH case manager Jane Shaw said.

Eleven clients lives there full time.

“They’re couples and individuals,” Shaw said. “We used to have 25 to 30 people (on cold nights) a few years ago. Our crowd has thinned out quite a bit.”

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One reason for the decline is the shelter’s stricter policy against drug use, she said.

“We started last year letting the police run their drug dogs in here,” Shaw said. "We don’t allow drugs in here. You can’t drink in here, either.”

She also said some homeless people don’t go to the cold night shelter because it’s too long of a walk for them.

“I guess they just hole up” somewhere, Shaw said.

The cold night shelter at CASH operates from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. and is in need of volunteers and meals for its Wednesday night operations. New pillows for people who stay in the cold night shelter, as well as sleeping bags and tarps for those who choose not to stay there, also are needed.

To learn more, call 850-398-5670 or visit https://crestviewshelter.org.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Okaloosa County homeless shelters need volunteers for cold nights