Laura Glesby Photo
Upon This Rock Ministries at 882 Grand Ave.
As New Haven gears up for sunny summer days, Mark Washington is already thinking about the frigid weather next winter — and the community members who won’t have a place to shelter during cold emergencies.
Washington, a street outreach manager at Youth Continuum, hopes to help address this need by starting a warming center at his Grand Avenue church, Upon This Rock Ministries.
He brought that idea to the Downtown Wooster Square Community Management Team on Tuesday evening.
Unlike homeless shelters, which often require admission through the state’s centralized 2 – 1‑1 system and tend to only accept sober clients, warming centers typically welcome walk-ins regardless of any substance used prior to entering.
United Way currently lists one emergency cold-weather warming center in New Haven, at 793 Grand Ave. (the 180 Center, a faith-based recovery organization).
Zoom
Mark Washington.
Washington, appearing as a representative of Upon This Rock at 882 Grand Ave., shared a rough sketch of what a warming center might look like, though many details still need to be worked out.
The center would operate in a downstairs open space within the church, which has a kitchen and a stove. The area is “spacious and secluded,” Washington said.
The hours might range between 7 or 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., with an approximate capacity of 20 people, on nights when the city calls a “cold-weather protocol.”
Before making concrete plans, Washington told the management team, “I wanted to come to you.”
The last time a homeless shelter was proposed for the Wooster Square neighborhood — the Y2Y shelter affiliated with Youth Continuum — several community members opposed the plan (and ultimately lost). Other housing-related social services are located on that stretch of Grand Avenue.
At Tuesday’s meeting, no one expressed either support or opposition to Washington’s idea.
Wooster Square resident Anstress Farwell asked about public health practices at the proposed warming center: “This winter, it sounds like we might have an increase in Covid rates, so you’d probably have to have protocols for keeping people safe.”
Washington replied that there would be “social distancing within the space,” and that the warming center would coordinate with the city to ensure safe operations.
Thank you to Mark Washington for proposing a warming center that would accept anyone regardless of their substance abuse Estes a place to get out of the cold.
I would also like to see cooling centers during the hot weather months during the heat of the day. With global warming raising our cities temperatures (last year was one of the hottest on record, and climate scientists predict each summer to get hotter unless we make drastic changes immediately,) a place together out of the sun and get cooled off and get a drink of water is going to be a life saving necessity. Communities need to start thinking about cooling shelters and increasing the access to shade and water to drink.