Non-profits work round-the-clock to get homeless to shelters

While those with means emptied supermarket shelves and bundled up indoors, Tim Jansen focused on making sure those in need have a place to stay during the weekend snowstorm.

Jansen is executive director of Community Crisis Services, a Prince George's County nonprofit organization that, among other things, works with local officials and shelters to find beds for the homeless.

"People will die if they're out in this, I have no doubt in my mind," Jansen said Friday. "I will be in the office for probably the next 72 hours."

In addition to the year-round shelters in the county, which are typically full on a daily basis, two county-funded "hypothermia" shelters known as Warm Nights are also open during the winter months, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily, Jansen said. Local churches open their doors to provide space, and the locations, which rotate, can hold about 50 people a night.

The priorities there, he said, are somewhat different. Unlike some other shelters, hypothermia shelters in the county will admit people under the influence, Jansen said, if it means saving them from freezing to death.

"Its goal is to get people out of the elements and give people a hot meal," he said.

The hypothermia shelters are also co-ed and accept children.

Throughout the day Friday, the Crisis Services hot line fielded calls from homeless people in Prince George's and assembled a list of names. Later, the center planned to deploy vans to three Metro stations -- College Park, New Carrollton and Addison Road -- to pick up residents whose names are on the list. However, Jansen said, workers would try to accommodate those who show up unannounced as well.

University Christian Church in Hyattsville and Brookins Faith Temple AME Church in Lanham will serve as the hypothermia locations through the weekend. Those in need can call Community Crisis Services at 888-731-0999.

Jansen said shelters will stretch beyond typical capacity if need be to make sure residents aren't caught in the weather.

But homeless residents will also be helped by a positive phenomenon that Jansen often observes during these types of situations -- estranged family members and acquaintances of the homeless who usually don't offer help tend to lend a hand.

People aren't as forceful or insistent that people can't stay," he said. "Doubling up, tripling up, is not the issue it is at other times."