Homeless gather at Colorado Springs shelters to get out of freezing cold

With single digit temperatures in Colorado Springs, it could lead to serious life-threatening problems for the homeless population. Shelters prepared for large groups to come in and get warm but some refuse and would rather stay in the cold.

Men women and even children gathered outside the Salvation Army homeless shelter waiting to get warm. They knew if they are out in the biting cold for too long it could get them sick. Jason Haselhorst says it happened to him Thursday night and that these shelters and his and many others only hope, “There is no place that you can really keep moving to so this is your only hope,” says Haselhorst. The possibility of freezing to death on many of the people’s minds. Joshua Tramel says, “It’s life or death because I don’t have everything I need to keep me warm out in these elements.”

These shelters are prepared for many more to come in on cold nights like this. Cindy Johnson with the Colorado Springs Rescue Missions says they had 380 homeless on Thursday night and still have plenty of room on Friday. “We can handle 450 so on a cold night like tonight we will see an increase,” says Johnson, “we don’t want anyone to be out in the elements we want them to come here.”

However, some homeless we spoke to roaming around downtown say they don’t want to go to a shelter no matter how cold it gets because of bad experiences in the past. One man, we spoke to who says his name is Macgyver says, “They are riddled with thieves, they are riddled with people who don’t want to shower, it’s got bed bugs.” Issues that other homeless say they have experienced, but say it’s something they will put up with if they want to stay warm throughout the night.

Another reason why people didn’t want to go to the shelter is because they said they can’t bring their pets in with them. However, the Springs Rescue Mission told KRDO they do allow pets into their facility.