An air of anticipation hung over the children’s basketball court at Imago Dei shortly after 9 p. m. Thursday.
At 9:30, the church’s gymnasium on Southeast 13th Avenue and Ankeny Street would open as one of Multnomah County and City of Portland’s six , tasked with keeping unsheltered people safe from that have whipped the region since Wednesday. An brought sub-freezing temperatures and to some areas of Portland, causing one , closing schools, stranding motorists and snarling traffic. At Imago Dei, blue tape neatly divided the basketball floor and a neighboring nook into 90 sections, each one with its own mat or cot and a pair of folded blankets.
Tables lined the front of the room, loaded with hygiene supplies, food, hot water kettles and clothes. And behind each table stood at least one volunteer, face-masked, name-tagged and ready to serve. Over the next six hours, 86 people – just four shy of the warming center’s capacity – would stream into the building, many with red noses and shivering from the cold as the temperature outside plunged into the low 20s.
They would be among at severe weather shelters across the tri-county area Thursday night. “It’s kind of bittersweet,” said Christopher Sun, a leader of the Imago Dei center’s overnight shift. “I’m glad we’re at capacity, but I know this is just a fraction of the people who are experiencing homelessness.
There are people who are still outside. ” Anyone seeking shelter can call 211 for help finding their nearest warming center and getting transportation there. TriMet is offering free rides through 10 a.
m. Saturday to anyone seeking a ride to a warming center. 9:30 P.
M. THURSDAY At the helm of the evening’s first shift from 7 p. m.
to 11 p. m. is 29-year-old Sulakha Hassan, a project manager for Multnomah County’s Department of County Human Services.
By 9:30 p. m. , she has already greeted a few people at the warming center’s entryway room.
It’s mostly quiet, other than the ˆwhirr” of the large air purifier and murmuring volunteers. Hassan’s first time volunteering at a warming center was in December 2021 at the Oregon Convention Center. The diversity of the crowd there surprised her: young, old, veterans, survivors of domestic violence, teenagers fleeing abusive homes, people experiencing mental health challenges and people who worked two jobs but couldn’t afford housing.
“I started understanding people’s transitions to coming here, and people tend to open up,” she says. “Everyone has someone that cares about them. Everyone definitely wants to feel accounted for and thought of and asked, ‘How are you?’ sincerely.
” Hassan, 29, often gets asked why she volunteers at the county’s warming and cooling centers during bouts of severe weather. Her answer is always the same: “I’m fortunate enough to be employed, able-bodied, healthy, have housing, and for me, specifically as a Muslim, it’s a fundamental right that other human beings have over me – if I have the capacity to help them and alleviate their stressful situations in any way, then I’m obligated to do so Islamically,” she says. “And culturally also as a Somali person, that’s something that we prioritize in our cultural values.
” 10:05 P. M. Coyote Burns, 32, calls 911.
The volunteer medic determined that a person lying on a mat near the tables should be evaluated by EMTs. The medics often see people with ailments including trench foot, frostbite, blisters from too-small boots, gout and infected lacerations, Burns says. She’s brought her own trauma kit to supplement the handful of county-provided medical supplies, which typically consist of baby wipes, a 30-count pack of Ibuprofen, a box of Band-Aids, two rolls of medical tape and some Tums.
After her volunteer shift ends, Burns will go home to sleep, then to her day job at the county’s Domestic and Sexual Violence Coordinating Office, then return for another shift. She will do this for four days. The schedule is tiring, but it’s what she loves to do.
“I got to give a woman a clean pair of socks tonight who has trench foot, and a woman cried because we gave her a pair of boots,” she says. “To provide someone care they can’t afford to go get anywhere else – I’ll sign up for as many shifts as I get to. ” 10:30 P.
M. The paramedics can’t come immediately – 911 is backed up, but they’re going to call to check every hour for updates. About 30 people have entered the shelter so far, and the energy of the space and the people inside is calm.
Some people sleep, others eat cups of ramen or plates of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and some simply sit and observe. A pair of volunteers stand by the locked entryway waiting to let people into the building. Their idle conversation is interrupted by a knock at the door.
One of the volunteers pushes it open and welcomes another person, accompanied by a strong gust of icy wind. 11 P. M.
The gym is half-full, with 45 of its cots and mats taken. The hour before midnight marks the shift change as people arrive to volunteer from 10 p. m.
to 7 a. m. A steady trickle of people enters the gym as one batch of volunteers gathers their things and leaves and another batch settles in.
Mike Rogers, an accountant for Multnomah County, takes his place at the welcome desk. This is his second time volunteering at a warming center at Imago Dei since 2021. The 55-year-old says he lives in the neighborhood and usually passes by at least a dozen people experiencing homelessness on his daily walks to and from work.
On one of those days, he saw four people sleeping on the sidewalk. “Not in a tent – on the sidewalk,” Rogers says. “If this shelter is open for people to come in from the extreme cold, then I’m happy to help out.
” Rogers says he’s “not hopeful” that conditions for unsheltered people will improve, citing increasing rent prices and evictions and the city’s sluggish progress on – clusters of tiny homes proposed by Commissioner Dan Ryan. But volunteering at the warming center does feel like one small way to help make sure his “neighbors don’t have this experience,” he says. 11:15 P.
M. It’s slow at the warming center, and 36-year-old Christopher Sun thinks it will stay that way. Or, at least hopes it will.
Sun, a project manager for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, took over as second-in-command during the overnight shift. While he had volunteered five times at cooling centers, Thursday night marked his first time volunteering at a warming shelter. “There’s always a bit of anxiety because you never know what the situation will be,” he says.
“People are coming in from all walks of life and you want to respect everyone’s sense of self as individuals, their dignity. ” Sun believes severe weather will only become more frequent and extreme with climate change, so he hopes the region can build a system that’s “more resilient. ” He also hopes warming centers will start to open at higher temperatures.
Multnomah County and the City of Portland now open warming centers when the temperature is predicted to fall to 25 degrees or colder, or when temperatures drop below 32 with an inch of driving rain or forecasters predict an inch or more of snow. “Does your experience of homelessness change with one degree? No, you’ll still freeze,” he says. 12 A.
M. FRIDAY Sun has gotten word from the higher-ups: The Imago Dei warming center will stay open through at least 11 a. m.
Friday – but it could stay open longer depending on the weather. (The county that all six shelters would stay open overnight Friday. ) While the number of people seeking shelter has swelled to 70, the center remains relatively quiet, besides the occasional cough, quiet conversation or the slam of the door as people come in or leave for a smoke break.
The entryway volunteers try soaking up puddles with towels, but replace them with rubber mats found in the building’s kitchen. It has dropped to 23 degrees outside. They let a man in through the front door.
“My hands,” he says, rubbing fingers that look gray. “They’re so cold. ” The man accepts a set of hand warmers from a volunteer and shakes them in his palms, blowing warm breath onto his fingertips.
“How cold is it?” he asks. “In the 20s,” a volunteer confirms. A couple walks past to go outside to smoke.
They return less than a minute later. “It’s way too cold for that,” the woman says, shivering. 12:55 A.
M. Paramedics have arrived, nearly three hours after they were called. One kneels to check on the person who had been lying by a table, while the other stands nearby and watches.
They find the person doing all right, pull the blanket back over the person and head for the door. “We had 42 calls waiting,” says one of the paramedics. “It’s just constant,” the other adds.
Paramedics and ambulances in Portland were on “triage” mode because of the weather, with many calls waiting two or three hours for a response, the paramedics say, except for the most dire emergencies. The paramedics rush back out into the cold. A volunteer uses a mop to sweep up puddles and pine needles left on the gym floor in their wake.
Most of the people are sleeping, but some are eating, sorting their belongings or strolling around the space. Volunteers chat quietly, occasionally answering a question: “No, we don’t have any tents – but we do have blankets. ” 1:40 A.
M. The center’s now-79 people have made a dent on the mountain of food that awaited them, including oranges, bagels, apple sauce, granola bars, cookies and chips. Only a pile of overly green bananas lies mostly untouched.
One person walks up to the table to request a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. “The last two jellies – you came just in time,” one volunteer says. Another volunteer finds a spare box of single-serving, diner-style jelly packets in the back.
“We’re in business,” the first volunteer says, shaking the grape and strawberry jellies onto the table. 2 A. M.
One table over, Laurie Perrone is helping distribute clothing and hygiene supplies. The 46-year-old works for the Oregon Department of Human Services as a case manager. Her week was upended by the storm, which left her teenage daughter temporarily stranded outside McDaniel High School and transformed a 30-minute commute into a nearly six-hour drive to get home Wednesday, Perrone says.
She’s grateful to have made it to Imago Dei without too much trouble, getting help from a No. 20 TriMet bus driver. Perrone says the hygiene kits — plastic bags with soap, toothbrushes, shaving cream, razors and other supplies – have been some of the most popular items, along with beanies, sweatshirts, socks, underwear and winter boots.
“I work at my regular job because I want to help, and this is just an extension of being able to help,” she says. “I can’t give monetarily right now, but I can give my time, and I think it’s important that my kids know this is what we do: We help people when we are able to. ” 2:30 A.
M. There are 86 people at the shelter now – four people shy of capacity. Almost everyone besides the volunteers is asleep.
A volunteer goes over to drape a blanket over the legs of someone shivering so hard that their bare feet emerge from under their blanket. A couple who just walked in pours water into a bowl for their dog, who is newly outfitted in a red hoodie from the clothing station. Even the volunteers have stopped chatting, instead sitting quietly or occasionally looking at their phones.
The air filter, a calming hum, is the loudest thing in the room. 3 A. M.
Halfway through his volunteer shift, Sun surveys the room. He sees the dichotomy of nearly reaching capacity at the center. “The folks that are here are people who could be here,” Sun says.
“But there are folks out there who can’t make that decision for themselves, in a way. ” Since the pandemic, Sun says he has felt himself going into a “hole,” despairing over how dire some things – including homelessness – have gotten in Portland and around the world. But nights like this one at the warming center reignite some hope, Sun says.
“If you ever need to restore your faith in humanity, just come to a cooling or a warming center in the middle of the night. ” -- Catalina Gaitán, , @catalingaitan_.
