Local shelters prepare to help homeless during storm

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas ( ValleyCentral ) — Shelters in the Rio Grande Valley are preparing for the arrival of Beryl and are ready to help some of the most vulnerable people in the area, the homeless.

Charity groups said there is a lot they need to do ahead of the storm. They will need to prepare for an increase in the number of people they will serve and secure their facilities.

“Any storms that come this way, we do usually see an increase in shelter stays,” said Tommy Martinez, Client Services Coordinator at Loaves and Fishes in Harlingen. “And it’s usually, you know, sporadically based on the weather.”

Loaves and Fishes said It is hearing from more people looking to take shelter for the storm. The group normally works with homeless clientele, but officials there said people who live in RVs or houses that might not be structurally sound have also contacted them.

“Now we have to look at other people that are not currently homeless. They might not feel safe in their household or in their residence. So we try to accommodate them as an emergency shelter here,” Martinez said.

The shelter has individual beds, but if more people seek shelter there, they can also close off a section of the cafeteria and put up emergency cots.

For now, they are keeping the staffing levels the same as normal and waiting to see exactly where the storm might be headed.

“If the need arises, some of our staff can come back to the shelter, but it all depends if they can make it back to our area or not,” Martinez said.

At the Ozonam Center in Brownsville, they began boarding up their buildings on Friday. Shelter Manager Myrna Arteaga said this is the first time the center has done that in her seven years there.

“We prep and we talk about it. We have meetings. But the boarding up and the prepping the meals and stuff like that, I had never gone through here at the shelter,” Arteaga said.

On Friday afternoon, Arteaga said the center had about two hundred beds available, but said, authorities in the area typically bring more individuals to the shelter.

“We have a lot of locals, homeless locals, that really don’t want to be in a shelter. But at the last minute, probably it’ll start tonight like at 10:30 or 11:00, PD will start bringing them and dropping them off where we can process them.”

Arteaga added that other facilities have also asked about the possibility of bringing their clients which includes local hospitals that will transport patients who are being discharged but do not have anywhere to go.

While walking around the facility, she said some of the residents were nervous about the storm and the emergency preparations Ozanam Center was implementing.

Arteaga told us some of the residents were also worried about what the storm would mean for their ability to move on from the center. During the facility’s daily meeting, Arteaga explained some flights and bus trips could be delayed until after the storm has passed.

Martinez, with Loaves and Fishes, said anyone planning to ride out the storm in the shelter should remember to bring important items with them such as a few days worth of extra clothes and any extra bottled water they can provide.

Most importantly, he said everyone should bring any medication they might need. With the uncertainty about the weather, they did not want to rely on EMS to come to the facility, even if they could safely make the trip.

Unfortunately, the shelter does not accommodate pets and service animals will have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

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