Hot temperatures mark the beginning of the summer months and the seasonal end of the Warming Center, one of Martinsville’s key assets in its efforts against homelessness.
While the Warming Center opens its doors to the region’s homeless population whenever temperatures dip in the fall and continues to run through the winter and part of spring, it ceases operation in the interim between April and November.
“We live in an area where there is just not a lot of opportunity,” said Lisa McGhee, assistant director of the Warming Center. “It’s not set up for people who have lost their way.”
As Martinsville’s only shelter for the more than 100 people believed to be unhoused in the city and surrounding region, this is a problem. In the winter months, during the peak of its operation, the Warming Center serves as both shelter and bridge between the unhoused and the organizations, like United Way, that seek to help them. During the summer months, the Warming Center’s closure makes it difficult for organizations to find unhoused clients.
“There really is no safe place,” McGhee said. “When the Warming Center shuts down there [aren’t] many places they can go. They are going to be sleeping under your bridges, they are going to be going from place to place trying not to get in trouble with the cops. This is like their safe place in our city.”
In recent years, a solution to this problem has begun to pick up steam among city officials, Warming Center staff and patrons.
Why not something like a Cooling Center?
It’s a simple question asked by one of the Warming Center’s patrons on an unseasonably warm evening in March, weeks before the center was scheduled to close for the season. Voicing the concern of many of the center’s patrons, he said people don’t have anywhere to go when temperatures get warm.
In Martinsville, the term “cooling center” can mean one of two things, depending on the context. When temperatures reach certain highs during the spring and summer months, places like the Salvation Army and YMCA temporarily open their doors to people trying to escape the heat.
This is not to be confused with the other meaning, which is to simply extend the Warming Center’s operation into the summer months. While the Warming Center operates during the fall and winter when temperatures are at their coldest, a Cooling Center wouldn’t be so much a shelter from hot temperatures as it would be a shelter that operates throughout the year.
The city council is largely in favor of the idea, with officials, including Mayor L.C. Jones, talking about its benefits whenever homelessness in the city is mentioned.
“I passionately advocate for the establishment of a year-round warming and cooling center alongside a day center specifically designed to uplift our community’s most vulnerable members,” Jones said. “This initiative represents a significant evolution beyond the conventional homeless shelter model by providing a secure environment, complete with essential community resources.”
Vice Mayor Kathy Lawson agreed.
“If the funding and resources were available, it would be good to have the center open year-round,” Lawson said. “Especially during the weather we are having right now, it’s really a difficult time to find a place to get out of this heat. Not only from the elements … but also for personal health concerns of overheating/heat stroke/dehydration.”
The House of Hope model
While a year-round shelter is unbroken ground for Martinsville, in nearby Danville, the House of Hope offers a vision of what such a project could look like. A little past its 10th year, the House of Hope offers a playbook for maintaining a permanent shelter.
“We get people from all walks of life coming to us,” said Matthew Fowler, the House of Hope’s executive director. He, along with 13 part-time employees and the occasional volunteer, is at the vanguard of helping Danville’s unhoused. Their services include providing food, hot meals and a myriad of agency resources.
“Our individual clients who are guests in our shelter, it’s up to us to work with them and also share with them information when it comes to resources,” Fowler said. “It’s difficult, it’s difficult, you have to be compassionate. You are dealing with folks that are … at their worst. You are dealing with a lot of emotion and on top of it, it’s always a challenge when it comes down to funding.”
House of Hope is partially funded by grants and the city. The bulk of its operations are covered by faith-based and other donations. According to Pro Publica’s nonprofit tracker, House of Hope had $444,000 in expenses in 2023.
Fowler said that maintaining a shelter throughout the year requires a community investment of more than just money. Awareness of the issue and community-wide willingness to do something about it are key to a successful center, he said.
“We have to make sure the community is aware that the homeless issue isn’t going anywhere,” Fowler said.
A productive season
Warming Center staff believe this most recent season was exemplary.
“We have one person who is dedicated to case management,” said Warming Center Director Ariel Johnson about Ashley Byrd, who continued to work after the shelter closed for the season. “Our biggest improvement was the connection we kept through the season. Now is the time people struggle the most because we lose that constant contact we have in the winter.”
This season was McGhee’s first year working at the center as assistant director. Her role is one of the changes for the Warming Center, now in its second year at its new location, the Salvation Army building at 603 S. Memorial Drive, near the Uptown District. No longer tucked away in a residential church, the Warming Center — and the homelessness problem — are now more visible on one of the city’s major streets.
It was an unintentional change, according to McGhee, who said that homelessness is an often-ignored problem in not just Martinsville but communities across the country.
While the location is different, the mission remains largely the same. McGhee said the Warming Center succeeded in its mission to provide hot meals and a warm place to sleep, daytime supplies and assistance in obtaining critical resources to secure housing.
The latter is of particular importance to McGhee and her team. McGhee said she knows shelters like the Warming Center are a stopgap compared to helping guests secure their own housing.
According to data, the center served 162 guests during the most recent season. Of that number, 70% of guests stayed fewer than 10 nights.
“For every one person that is here … they have at least three or four friends who wouldn’t step inside here for whatever reason,” McGhee said.
The most recent season saw an increase in public interest, with donations totaling $40,000. Staff logged 2,500 hours, while volunteers contributed 3,800 hours.
In a typical year, the center’s total budget is a combined $70,000 from the city and county on top of public donations.
The most recent season had fewer volunteers, relative to past seasons. McGhee said their work was still impactful.
“They serve the meals, clean and just be another listening ear for the guests,” she said. “It is encouraging [to guests] to know that there are people willing to come in here, not get paid, and spend their time with them.”
McGhee said expanding the Warming Center operations into summer months will require volunteer work, but she thinks it is possible.
“We need a full-time shelter, so we’re not starting and stopping with these guys,” she said. “It feels like there is a lag between the winter and summer months. It feels like everything that we accomplished has been thrown away.”
Johnson said she could do a year-round shelter if she had a dedicated building to house the Warming Center.
“If we could get a building, I would figure out the rest,” she said.
Ultimately, McGhee said it’s up to the community and if they want to see an end to the issue.
“Community involvement is really good here, whenever we put up a post about a need they usually donate more than what we ask for,” McGhee said.
To truly eradicate homelessness in the city, empathy is the strongest asset, she said.
“I’ve had people just ask me like, ‘Are you afraid to be there?’ and I said, ‘No, not at all.’ They just need someone to love them, they need a little more grace then we ask for every day. We need resources. There are small businesses that employ some of the people who work here. We need people who are willing to give them a chance.”
