Warming center

A more prevalent emergency which warming centers seek to prevent is hypothermia, the risk for which is aggravated by factors such as age, alcohol consumption, and homelessness.

[citation needed] While they are in some cases directly affiliated with existing homeless shelter operations, warming centers are more frequently housed in different locations.

Such waivers may be either on a one-time basis, or pursuant to memorandum of understanding (MOUs) with relevant agencies; however, existing shelter sites are typically at the highest level of use compatible with neighborhood character and the political balance of power.

A recent trend promoted by organizations such as Common Ground is to piggyback vulnerability indexes and site data onto HUD-mandated enumeration studies.

Often, users of warming centers are persons who are not participating in routine homeless shelter services due to disciplinary exclusions or non-compliance with behavioral policies.

In order to distinguish mere oddness from behavioral disorders which might disrupt the ability of other persons to obtain service, professional staff is the preferred alternative to all-volunteer personnel.

[22] Warming centers frequently are opened as a response to the occurrence of hospitalizations dues to hypothermia when unsheltered persons are discovered in extreme exposure-related trauma or mortality.

"[24] Others, including straight edge, DIY, or anarchist-identified persons who may choose to live "off-the-grid", without facing exclusion from quotidian shelters due to sobriety issues.

[25] Others simply find shelters too regimented, too much like jail: newspaperman Mike Hendricks quotes a former resident of an unauthorized homeless encampment named Crow, who said that "some guys would sooner do what they want and not be told what to do.

[27] His recommendations have been circulated by Chicago's urban community activist Chrisdian Wittenburg including instructions on building a makeshift stove and a plethora of collaborative cultural projects.

"[28] In Detroit, failure to disburse Community Development Block Grants resulted in a situation where people slept in plastic chairs or "in cold hallways".

Sue Murphy is the administrative director of Interfaith Action of Evanston, Illinois, which has a daytime center for a time slot during which overnight shelters are closed to clients.

Her concerns are seconded by Sue Loellebach of Connections for the Homeless, who laments the paucity of warm refuge during daylight hours, but rejects that and even extended-stay shelters as inadequate and that they perpetuate the status quo.