DeKalb church opens overnight warming center

DeKALB – A DeKalb church opened a free overnight warming center starting Thursday night ahead of the weekend’s expected winter storm and cold snap, offering those in need a chance to get a good night’s sleep out of the frigid snow.

Marreen Buntaine, director of the community empowerment campaign, and Dan Kenney, a member of the Universalist Unitarian Congregation of DeKalb, said the overnight shelter is a needed resource in the community.

“I just had noticed there was a gap in the warming center schedule where there was no one open overnight and everyone had to be out by 9 p.m., I think that’s the latest the library was open,” Kenney said Thursday. “Then I had also heard Hope Haven is full quite often.”

The church’s board approved the warming center plan, Kenney said.

DeKalb County offers a number of warming centers across DeKalb, Sycamore and Genoa to name a few. Often they’re places such as public libraries or police departments. None of the DeKalb locations offer overnight hours, however.

Hope Haven, 1145 Rushmoore Drive, DeKalb, is the area’s only shelter for people experiencing homelessness. The shelter’s tireless and admirable effort to serve locals are often over-burdened, Kenney said, due to capacity limits.

Enter the church at 158 N. Fourth St., blocks from downtown DeKalb, which opened at 8:30 p.m. Thursday through 8:30 a.m. Friday. Those hours will be offered daily, organizers said, until temperatures get above 32 degrees.

Below freezing temperatures are exactly what the National Weather Service has predicted through at least Tuesday.

The agency issued a winter storm warning for all of northern Illinois including DeKalb County effective from 3 a.m. Friday through noon Saturday. A freezing cold front is expected to settle over DeKalb this weekend. Storm began in the early morning hours Friday, dumping half a foot of snow on the county.

Heavy snow and high winds were seen across DeKalb County Friday morning.

Snowfall totals are predicted between 8 to 12 inches followed by bitter cold temperatures by Saturday afternoon.

Kenney said he knows himself the impact of not having a place to stay.

“I’ve always been kind of service-oriented,” Kenney said. “I’ve been homeless myself in the past, so I know what it’s like when you’re kind of just living in the world so to speak. So I just felt that there’s no reason somebody should be out at night when it’s so cold and to not have any shelter.”

[ Warming centers available for free in DeKalb County ]

It’s a simple act, Kenney said, caring about each other. It’s also a profound one that can have life-saving impacts.

Temperatures were just around freezing Thursday night into Friday and remained there for much of the day. Those numbers are expected to plummet over the weekend though, said Mark Ratzer, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Chicago/Romeoville office.

Wind chills are expected to reach 15 to 20 degrees below zero by Sunday night into Monday, forecasts show. Some areas in more northern Illinois could reach wind chills of 35 degrees below zero through Tuesday night, according to the National Weather Service.

“I would say if people don’t have to be out, if they can work from home or postpone other activities, it’s probably a good time to do that,” Ratzer said Thursday night. “These are some of the strongest types of storms we have in winter in this part of the world. People should take it seriously and hunker down and try not to be out in it because that’s when bad things can happen.”

Not everyone has that luxury, a home to stay warm in, however.

The DeKalb church’s warming center also will provide food at night and in the morning, and a place to sleep. It might not seem like much, Kenney said, some sleep on mats on the floor, bedding and blankets, but he hopes it will help.

“Anyone who is homeless that doesn’t have a place to get into shelter at night is welcome to come here to the church,” Buntaine said. “We do have water.”

Butaine also has organized it so people can get a hot meal and breakfast in the morning before they leave, Kenney said.

The pair compared the church’s overnight offering to a program called PADS that used to operate in the county.

The Public Action to Deliver Shelter program is a nonprofit that operates across the region. When it was in DeKalb, area churches rotated overnight shelters in shifts so that no one church or volunteer group had to handle the efforts alone, especially overnight, when temperatures and windchills tend to be the coldest.

This time of year is often when agencies such as the National Weather Service, American Red Cross and others including local fire and police departments announce the hazards of spending too much time in the elements when it’s cold outside. Hypothermia, frostbite and other health hazards are possible if people don’t cover up properly or seek shelter.

An overnight shelter hasn’t been offered in DeKalb for a while, however, Buntaine said.

“I’m calling for a reinstatement of PADS, if the churches could reconsider that or perhaps city officials could consider that,” Buntaine said.

For now, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of DeKalb is an option. At the church, service is a calling, Kenney said.

“We believe in the inherent dignity of people and that everyone should be respected equally,” Kenney said. “So I think that’s part of our mission is to be able to provide a welcoming environment and provide dignity for every individual.”