Shelter Overload and Problems

         Shelters are a great way for the homeless to get out of the weather. However,  homeless shelters are proving to be inefficient. Most cities don’t have enough space or beds to take care of their homeless population. “There are fewer available shelter beds than homeless people in major cities across the nation. In some places, the gap between available space and human need is significant, leaving hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of people with no choice but to struggle for survival in outdoor, public places,” according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

          Winter shelters wait to open when increasingly cold temperatures arrive. Hypothermia can be caught at 50 degrees, but most places don’t declare hypothermia warning until 40 degrees. Baltimore goes lower at a whopping 13 degrees, but devastatingly enough, a handful of jurisdictions wait until it’s in the 20s and another group until it’s at freezing.  

     Even with the help of homeless shelters, there is always the issue of a lack of space. The multiple religious institutions that offer warm beds for the night also deal with this problem. In fact, across the United States, between 12% and 83% of the homeless population in a multitude of cities are without shelter options.