Kansas City is due for another cold snap this weekend, with dangerously low wind chill temperatures expected Friday into Saturday morning.
Warmer temperatures during the week brought a reprieve for the city’s unhoused population and the organizations who serve them after last weekend’s winter storm brought dangerously low temperatures to Kansas City and left homeless shelters and unhoused resources in the city overflowing.
Chad Shafer with the National Weather Service Pleasant Hill says it will be hard for anyone to be outside these next few days without enough protection from the cold.
“If you have exposed skin, you can get frostbite in as little as 30 minutes,” Shafer said. “It’s definitely something you need protection for, especially with prolonged exposure outside.”
Local shelters are accustomed to dealing with an influx of demand throughout the winter months, as the weather shifts from dangerous extremes to more moderate conditions.
“We're pretty much almost full year-round,” said Eric Burger, executive director of Shelter KC. “The nice thing in the winter, though, is there are shelters that are only open in the winter, and that actually takes a little relief.”
Burger credits the city’s extreme weather plan Zero KC for helping streamline collaboration between shelters and resources to help accommodate for that need.
“There's a lot of coordination that happens to make sure that everybody who wants a bed gets a bed,” Burger said.
Shelter KC extends its hours to stay open during the day in extreme temperatures.
Shelter staff also keep an eye out for weather-related health issues, like hypothermia or frostbite, in clients this time of year.
“Then we're making sure that people have hats, gloves and really appropriate footwear,” Burger said. “That's probably the biggest challenge with people in the extreme cold is that frostbite.”
Burger says that Shelter KC partners with Swope Health and a visiting clinic onsite that can do any necessary screenings. If someone seems to be exhibiting signs of medical issues, he says the organization is prepared to set anyone up at the hospital or contact emergency services.
In Wyandotte County, which does not have a permanent overnight shelter, dealing with the cold can be more complicated.
Susila Jones, executive director of Cross-Lines Community Outreach, says they only have shelters that run through the night when it’s 25 degrees and below.
“When we’re hitting these cold stretches, it just puts everybody working at the shelter at max capacity,” Jones said. “So staff are working their regular jobs, then they're going to the shelter to work at night.”
Jones says it’s really hard for staff — and even more so for people seeking their services — to find a balance between the extreme mode activated during cold snaps and their regular operations.
“It's a really on-off switch, which is difficult to both coordinate from a staff perspective, but then also, if you're living on the streets,” Jones said. “It’s really difficult to know where am I going to be able to be tonight to be safe and keep myself and my belongings safe.”
Jones says it’s difficult for people living on the streets to move all of their belongings to emergency shelters because they will likely close again a few days later when temperatures get back to normal. That lack of stability is only more prevalent because Wyandotte County lacks those wraparound services all year round.
“We are still seeing the intense need of folks right now because it is so cold,” said Jones. “So the biggest thing I would say is, Wyandotte County needs a full time shelter that isn't reliant on being open only during the winter months.”
