This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It was updated 10:11 a.m. Monday, Feb. 24 to include written comment received from the City of Springfield.
GREGORY HOLMAN: Ashley Quinn, welcome to KSMU News.
ASHLEY QUINN: Thank you for having me.
Q. So Ashley, before we get into our core topic on crisis cold-weather shelter for unhoused people living here in the Ozarks, I just want to recap what the weather has been doing over the past several days, because we're recording a little bit in advance for our audience. Just join me on a quick journey with National Weather Service data?
A. Yes.
Q. This will be quick. So we're speaking Thursday, February 20. We're coming off the back end of a winter storm. On Tuesday, it dumped about 8 inches of snow here in the Ozarks. The past few days, the daily average temperature ranged between 5 and 15 degrees. The lows were as cold as -7. The warmest it's been since Tuesday is 22 degrees. Outside right now, it's about 12 degrees as we're speaking. So my first question is just to bridge this knowledge about the weather the past few days into contact with your experience as a pastor working in community efforts to help unsheltered people in the winter, when the weather gets this bad. Ashley, can you just unpack what does it mean for people trying to survive without stable housing?
A. Thank you for the question, Greg. I think that what we see is there are some real physical consequences to being out in the cold for any any prolonged period of time, even when it's this cold, even a very short period of time. I noticed I took my glove off for five minutes. My hand was freezing cold after that. So any period of time outside without really warm weather gear is going to be very cold. It subjects you to hypothermia, frostbite, and those kinds of things. People will do things to try to stay warm that actually sometimes don't work — don't work the way you want them to work.
Q. Somebody might drink a hard liquor, thinking it's going to warm them up, but that's like heat escaping your body, it's just not working.
A. Yeah, it counteracts what you want to be happening. So we see that, and I think what we see is people who are desperate and scared and stressed, like they're afraid of that happening to them, and so they're desperate to get shelter, to find a place. They're worried that we don't have enough shelter spaces available in town, or they are not used to looking for them. They usually think they can camp out and they'll be fine, and then in the middle of the night, they find out that that it's not working and that they need to seek shelter.
Q. So in other words, we've got some definitely some bodily health issues and some mental wellness challenges that can be pretty severe all across the board. So let's circle back around to the actual volunteer system here in Springfield that's trying to address wintertime homelessness. Can you just — on the most macro level, without getting too far in the weeds — describe the cold-weather shelter system for people who might not be familiar with it? We're talking basically about a handful of churches, right?
A. Churches and community centers, yeah. So it's, it's basically just these volunteer nonprofit organizations, in large part, that when the weather forecast is predicted to be 32 or below overnight, it's a daily call that gets made. It gets posted on this one specific church's Facebook page, because they've been doing it the longest, and everybody else just kind of like phone trees that out from there.
And then, and then it's volunteers that show up at these different locations, open them up, start the percolators going for hot chocolate and things like that. And then set out the cots, set out the pillows and blankets for guests who's wanting to seek shelter overnight. They go to the Veterans Coming Home Center, which doesn't actually have anything to do with veterans.
Q. This is a charitable nonprofit group there basically at Jefferson and Chestnut, and this is a gathering place to get people to these shelters.
A. Sure, so we provide dinner there at that point in time. This is all volunteers that are that are preparing meals and bringing meals there, sometimes for 250, 300 people on a night, and then so folks can get a meal there. And then they get signed up for shelter. And that, that really is, is is necessary, because some shelters, you can take your dog to. Most of the shelters you can't. Some shelters, if you are a woman that you don't want to be around a bunch of other guys, or something like that, there's a shelter specifically for women. There's some shelters that are a little bit better suited for folks who might be elderly or disabled. There's LGBT-specific shelters. So we try to find the shelter that fits best for the person who's coming and seeking shelter. And that way, it's a lot easier, if they were to walk up to the door of one shelter and it was full, and then we had to try to find a way to get them to another shelter where there's a spot, if we have everybody coming to that one central sign up spot. It's as simple as my sign-up sheet is full; use the sign up sheet of the person next to me to. Get into another spot.
Q. And again, we're talking about the Veterans Coming Home Center — I want to make sure people have practical information, if they need it. The Veterans Coming Home Center. This is on the 800 block of North Jefferson Avenue near Chestnut Expressway, and people need to get there by about 5:30 p.m., and then that way, there's a pathway to getting dinner and shelter that night.
A. Yes.
Q. But as we just covered, this is when it's 32 degrees or below. So it can be 33 degrees and raining and windy, no shelter. Is that correct?
A. You could still get dinner at Vets at 5:30, but there would not be a shelter sign-up, if it was 33 degrees.
Q. And that's just because of resource limitation [at the] volunteer community centers?
A. Yeah, that's basically just what what we, as a committee, as a network, have said: That's what our line is. That's what we think we can get folks out for.
Q. And I want to ask a little bit more about the capacities, just like we've been talking about. My understanding from observing this as a journalist, is the shelter system in Springfield seems a bit smaller than it was last year. And I know one big change [was] the Revive 66 trailer project on West Chestnut that closed down. The nonprofit that runs that said they wanted to shift their focus to tiny house neighborhoods that would help get people into permanent housing. But my understanding that's something like 50 beds that has gone out of the system. It also seems like there's other resources that is, you know, maybe ebbed away a little bit. The Connecting Grounds church — my understanding is they still have an outreach center on West Chestnut Expressway that's very busy, but they used to have a service where they had an app that would tell people, you know, the shelters are open today. Here's where to go, and that's no longer active, correct?
A. Correct.
Q. Those are, those are some changes that you're you're acknowledging have happened. But I'm curious, is there anything else from last winter to this winter that's changed as far as the capacity of Springfield system?
A. I think I mean, when we, when we point to the loss of the Revive 66 campgrounds, it's both the loss of just, you know, a strict number of beds. There's fewer beds available, but it's also — those trailers were non-congregant space. So most of our shelter spaces are big rooms where you've got 25, 30, 50 people, all in a gymnasium or a fellowship hall or something like that, together. That's a lot of people. If you have PTSD or something like that, you don't get like it can it can be really hard to get along and and to to sleep and feel safe and secure and not have your anxiety going off the charts in a space like that, for a lot of folks. And so that's why a lot of folks don't seek shelter, or if you're having a disagreement with the guy who happens to be on the cot next to you, or something like that, and you just you guys can't get along for whatever reason. And there's all kinds of different reasons why. Then we did have the opportunity before to maybe have one person leave shelter and go to to the Revive 66 trailers, and kind of be able to have their own personal space in the trailer and not not be surrounded by all the kind of chaos that can be present at some of the bigger shelters. So it's both the strict number of beds and having a space that people can go where they're not surrounded by other people.
Q. It sounds like a major change. Now, when we were setting up this interview last week, you told me that the church-based, the nonprofit-based shelter system in the wintertime, it really can only serve a fraction of the need for emergency housing in the Springfield area. Can you just expand on on that and what that dynamic looks like, as far as your understanding, as somebody doing pastoral work on this topic?
A. I think it's so hard to kind of even envision what someone who is unsheltered looks like. You might, have a picture in your mind of someone you've seen on the news or something like that, and maybe it's an overgrown beard, or they seem kind of like they haven't had a shower in a couple of days or something. And these are certainly realities. There are families that live in cars, and they don't want anyone to know they're homeless because they might be afraid that their kids would get taken away from them, or something like that. There are people who might be able to double up or triple up or something in a home somewhere, but sometimes tensions rise and you get kicked out of wherever you're couch-surfing. So the definition of homelessness is a little bit broader than maybe what initially people might think of.
Q. And under federal law, there's multiple definitions of "homelessness" that are used policy-wise in the United States, to try to help peope?
A. Yes, and it's hard to count everybody, because if you're trying to stay off of people's radar, because, you know, there's lots of laws basically that make homelessness a crime, you end up trespassing somewhere or something like that. And so there's, there's lots of folks who purposefully try to stay kind of unnoticed, but, it's because of what we do as a society and the way we stigmatize it. And so when it comes to trying to know actually how many people in our community are homeless, it's hard to count. I'll say The Connecting Grounds Church used to do a running census. If they knew that somebody had become housed, they would take them off the list. But otherwise, every time someone would come in and say, "I'm homeless and I need a sleeping bag," or "I'm homeless and I need a pair of socks," they would write them down on the list.
Q. And my recollection there, Ashley, is they counted up something like 2,000 to 3,000 people, right? But the shelter system has only a few hundred beds?
A. On a regular 32-degree night, we have about 150 to 180 beds. And then if it's zero degrees outside and there's snowing coming down, if National Weather Service is putting out alerts, its really dangerous for unsheltered people, then we can expand out to be about 300. So if you look at the difference between 300 and 3,000, there's still a lot of people.
Q. Now, as we reported earlier this month on KSMU broadcasts, the Springfield City Council recently voted to reauthorize what they call a declaration of "economic and housing access calamity." And so this was a resolution first established back in December 2009. They were dealing with the great recession at that time. So in other words, coming off the the subprime crisis, the housing loan crisis, that caused the big recession in 2008-2009. My understanding is that this resolution from the city of Springfield has been reauthorized at least eight times for about three-year periods each time, and that the nonprofits and churches rely on this resolution to establish their legal permit to have the crisis winter shelter for unhoused folks. So my question is, can you share your perspective on how this city-level policy affects the church and the nonprofit community's attempts to address these needs for emergency shelter?
A. Yeah, so our city's zoning laws, you know that says you can put an office building here, you can put a house here. You know, those kinds of things are really, really restrictive when it comes to where we can put emergency shelters, what they call soup kitchens, anything basically that is a service provider for unsheltered folks. Our city zoning is pretty restrictive. This calamity declaration is the only way that most of, like, pretty much every one of these locations would be able to open. And so that's that's really vital in that respect. [Meanwhile] the calamity declaration kind of sets up what the situation is and why they're making this declaration. Which is that we've had, you know, 25-percent poverty rates, 23 percent poverty rates. And I think the state average is something like 13 percent —
Q. Currently, my understanding is it's 19.4 percent poverty in the city of Springfield in the state of Missouri is about 12 percent.
A. So the other thing with the calamity declaration, [the resolution states that it] would go away if we were like below, or even with what the state level was, which we're obviously shrinking that gap. It was 25 percent, we're down to 19 percent, you're saying. So we're shrinking that gap, but this is over a decade of time, and we're still not there yet. And so by just saying, these nonprofits can temporarily open for three years, maybe max at a time or something, it just really it, it precludes any kind of meaningful investment in actually solving the problems.
Q. I was going to ask you about that, because it would seem to me that, like if I was a church and I wanted to put in showers, or build a new facility, I'm probably budgeting and planning on more than a three-year timeframe, right? Is that kind of an issue with this?
A. Yes. And when a church or somebody is [hosting shelter space], you know, that's not the main full-time focus of that space. It does mean putting all the cots away, so that some kids can have recess in the room. And then pulling all the cots back out or whatever. So if you had dedicated spaces that were actually intended for people to sleep and live in them, then that would be a whole different kind of ball game if we could invest in something like that as a city.
(KSMU reached out to the City of Springfield for comment on the city's "economic and housing access calamity" declaration and its impact on homelessness relief. In a written statement from Senior Planner Bob Atchley sent the morning of Feb. 24, the city noted its role leading the HUD Continuum of Care for Greene, Webster and Christian counties, also known as the Ozarks Alliance to End Homelessness. The city also says Springfield's "calamity declaration" is "critical" not only for the wintertime crisis shelters but for "permanent" shelter facilities like Safe to Sleep women's shelter.
The city says it directed federal COVID stimulus funding from the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act toward Safe to Sleep, along with emergency shelters linked to The Kitchen Inc. and The Salvation Army. The city also says that the Victory Mission is working on the development of a new emergency shelter.))
Q. Now, I want to leave people with some really practical information that they can use. And we've covered this a little bit, but again, if you are looking for shelter, if you're unhoused right now, Veterans Coming Home Center at 806 North Jefferson Avenue, you want to get there by about 5:30 p.m. And at least for this week, that is a pathway to getting dinner, getting to shelter, they'll be able to help you with the system that exists. Is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Now, what about volunteering, if people want to get to some kind of central social media page or website where they could sign up for volunteering, what would that be? And does every volunteer spend 8 or 10 hours overnight helping folks? Or are there different roles? Can you kind of unpack some of that stuff for us?
A. The overnight volunteers are absolutely vital. We can't really open a shelter if we don't have someone there overnight. And I know the shelter that we help operate, we were still needing an overnight volunteer for tonight, at the time that we're doing this taping [Thursday, February 20]. But no, not all shifts are overnight. And I think before someone does commit to an overnight, it might be a good idea to come in and and do one of those kind of hospitality shifts, where you serve coffee and hot chocolate and get to know the folks and the space and that kind of thing a little bit, if you like.
There are some people who don't like other people and but they know how to scrub a toilet and mop a floor, and they are happy to make that their contribution. And we need that as well. We've got folks that pick up bags and bags and bags of laundry and drive it to a commercial facility that does the laundry for us for free. Thank you, Enterprise Laundry, for doing that for us.
And when those kind of extra extreme weather shelters open up, we don't have that commercial laundry service. So there's people who just pick up laundry, take it to their house, take it to a laundromat, do laundry throughout the day, bring it back to us at night for the next night.
Q. So there's a variety of timeframes, it's not all overnight?
A. There's daytime, there's morning, there's evening. We've got some volunteers who just really like picking up heavy cots and moving them around the room and setting them up and so, like, that's when they show up, is just to shine and do that.
Q. So people can sign up just to move the cots around for a little bit?
A. Basically, yeah.
Q. And is there a website, or where can they go?
A. So the Community Partnership of the Ozarks is who staffs all of these efforts, and they're amazing. They've got, and I don't have the exact, you know, backslash or whatever, but it's CPOzarks.org, and if you type in their search bar "crisis cold weather shelter," you can get to a page. It'll have a volunteer interest form link. It'll tell you a little bit about it. It'll show where the different the places are around town that are doing it, and and then they take that information and share it with each of us individually, as shelters. Each shelter individually staffs our efforts, and the shelter that I help run, we pay an overnight staff person to work alongside an overnight volunteer. So there's oftentimes someone who's a lot more experienced who will be there with you, if you're brand new to this.
Q. So CPOzarks.org, and look for content about crisis cold weather shelter?
A. You'll be able to find a volunteer form that can connect you to the different churches and nonprofits that have a site that serves this cold weather, winter shelter. And
there's a video of volunteers talking about what their experience is like.
Q. So you can get to know what's going on a little bit, even before you talk to another human or reach out.
A. Yes, you can kind of know what you're getting into. Yeah, one of the things that I think is amazing about this, you know, purely volunteer-led and volunteer-run system that we have is that already this season, we've provided 10,000 bed-nights of shelter. If you add up all of the different nights, and all of the people served at each of one of those shelters, 10,000 bed-nights of shelter from just people who care, who open up the doors to their building and say, come in out of the cold. And that's really a tremendous effort of a lot of really caring, compassionate people in our community. And we could always use more.
Q. So a lot of people care. A lot of people are leveraging what resources they have to get a lot done, is your core message there. I've been talking to Ashley Quinn. He is pastor of public theology and justice for the National Avenue Christian Church here in Springfield, that's one of a handful of churches and local nonprofits, and they all team up to create Springfield's informal system of cold weather shelters. Each winter in Springfield, they serve people who are trying to survive without stable housing.
Ashley, thank you so much for joining us on Ozarks Public Radio.
A. Thank you.
