From left, homeless men Randall (last name not given), Michael Smith and Paul Phipps wait outside the First United Methodist Church in Kissimmee Feb. 25 for admission to the church’s cold night program. The church has seen a rise in attendance for the program with this winter’s low temperatures.

By Brian McBride
Associate Editor

With February recorded as the second coldest February since the 1950s, more local homeless have been seeking night shelter, which has strained resources for the churches and organizations offering the service.

A line of homeless men and women formed at the First United Methodist Church's Fellowship Hall in downtown Kissimmee shortly before 6 p.m. on Feb. 25, a night when temperatures were expected to dip below 40 degrees, triggering the church to open its cold night program.

This winter, the church has seen a significant increase in the number of nights it opened its doors to the homeless – 23 as of Monday, nine more than the entire 14 times in 2009 – Renda Carter, coordinator of the church program, said.

“This is about people the economy has not been good to,” she said.

The church budgets about $500 for the winter program, Carter said. But with a nightly average of about 80 people that took advantage of the program, the challenge of feeding the homeless with soup and cornbread can be a task, Carter said. With the homeless understandably hungry, the church must stay on top of buying food. It has caused the church to have to free up money from other budget areas to cover program costs or those who volunteer to serve the needy to dip into their own pockets, Carter said.

“A lot of the volunteers do,” Carter added.

February has been the coldest winter since 1958, meteorologist Arlena Moses, from the National Weather Service in Melbourne, said. The average low for February was 45.2 degrees recorded in the Orlando area. Normally, the average is 51.3 degrees, Moses said. The coldest temperature was 34 degrees on Feb. 14.

The Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida, which serves several counties, including Osceola, and runs programs to help return homeless individuals to lives of independence through case management, education and job training, has had 23 cold night programs since Dec. 20. That's already up from the total of 14 last year, Communications Director Muffet Robinson said.

“That's very high,” she said.

The coalition’s cold night program usually accommodates more than 200 people, but that too was on the increase.

“I think our highest number of men has been 314 and our norm is about 250,” she said.
The cold has even driven homeless women off the street at night, which usually isn't the case, Robinson said. The coalition makes special room for them.

The community has responded well as far as donating blankets and clothing, but the increased homeless numbers at night is increasing the coalition's costs to meet the need, Robinson said.

“Where it probably has been taxing or where it will be taxing is our utility bills,” she said. “We know our utility bills will be higher.”

So what is it that has made winter colder this year? It's a weather pattern called Arctic oscillation, Moses said. In scientific terms, Arctic oscillation refers to shifts in atmospheric pressure over the Arctic and the middle latitudes of the earth.

“We're getting a lot of cold air funneling in from the East Coast,” Moses said.

According to media reports, a homeless man in Pompano Beach died last month when temperatures fell to 35 degrees at night. The Broward County Medical Examiner determined the man died from hypothermia, which was aggravated by alcoholism and heart disease.

“If you are outside for a long period of time you are vulnerable to hypothermia or frostbite,” Moses said of the latest weather conditions.

Meanwhile, Carter said she is seeing new faces this year taking advantage of the church service.  Tania, 39, a homeless woman, who has been on and off the streets for about 10 years and did not want to give her last name, said she's had to survive the cold winter days. She was just one of many waiting to get into the church last week.

“It's not fun,” she said of the weather. “It's not comfortable.”