Hillsborough County cold shelters provide warm place to sleep for dozens

Cold shelters open as temperatures plunge

Hillsborough County opened seven cold shelters over the weekend. FOX 13's Danielle Zulkosky reports.

TAMPA, Fla. - Temperatures quickly dropped to dangerous conditions on Saturday, leaving many without a warm place to spend the night.

Cold shelters are opening their doors to welcome people inside so they have a safe and warm place to spend the night.

The backstory:

Dr. Reba Haley is the pastor at Tampa Bay Mission of Hope. She said her mission of serving the homeless is personal.

"I was homeless myself before, being in a domestic violence situation," Haley said.

She knows exactly what her clients are going through.

"We're seeing an increase of women that are being victims of domestic violence and abuse, and that are, you know, some of them have had their children taken," Haley said.

Haley runs one of the seven shelters in Hillsborough County open this weekend because of the cold temperatures.

What they're saying:

"They are people too," Haley said. "Even though they're homeless, and they have addictions, they have mental [illness], they still are God's children, and they deserve the decency of housing."

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Haley said she does so much more than provide emergency warming shelter.

She works with the people that come through her door to get them off the streets for good.

"Being in the community for as long as I've been in it, we know what's available," Haley said. "So we link them with resources to help them, to move them from permanent housing, but mainly to transitional housing, into permanent housing."

This is not easy work, and it requires a lot of steps to get a person to permanent housing.

"Comprehensive support services for them with parenting classes, employment, anything we can do after we move you from homelessness, temporary homelessness, to transitional housing," Haley said. "It's really a wraparound sort of, this is just a drop spot, but we need to move you from this spot to transitional housing."

What's next:

She wants other groups to step up.

"We can't do it alone, we're at capacity, but the county needs other faith-based agencies to help and provide hope for those that are less fortunate," Haley said.

What you can do:

If you want to help, Haley said there is always room for you at Tampa Bay Mission of Hope.

"We need their support. This is a community project. These are our neighbors," Haley said. "These are neighbors, so we need the community to support us, to help us, to help these people that are less fortunate."

This church also provides clothing and a food pantry for the community and accepts donations.