El Niño Rains, Cold Hit the Local Homeless Hard

As the latest of the long-predicted El Niño rain storms drenches Pasadena, a local agency has put out the call to its member churches to help provide more shelters for the homeless in the area.

“Now that the rains have come, we are going to be open every night,” said Donna Burns, executive director of Friends in Deed, which manages a network of shelters in Pasadena and the East San Gabriel Valley. “Not only because of the temperatures, but also because of the rain, because this will create a very increased need for shelter, and we can see it happening already.”

Burns told Pasadena Now that she had sent out an email Tuesday to her fellow member congregations—churches, temples and mosques—to ask them to consider opening up their fellowship halls, or their sanctuaries, in mid-afternoon hours.

As Burns explained, her organization provides evening shelter for women, but, she said, “Many times the women can’t get to us, or have nowhere to go in the middle of the day when the rain is so bad, even if it’s just a few hours a day.

“It’s very hard when you’re serving a population as vulnerable as homeless women, and to tell them, ‘We have to close now,’ and they have nowhere to go,” she continued.

The Friends in Deed network has 52 member congregations ranging from large churches like All Saints, to the smaller Pasadena Jewish Temple, in locations from San Marino to the south, Sierra Madre to the east and La Crescenta to the west.

According to Burns, Friends in Deed’s women’s shelter has been full all week, and with the drop in temperatures, is now staffing their Bad Weather Shelter at Pasadena Covenant Church, on Lake Avenue. The shelter opens when there is a weather forecast of 40 degrees or lower, or a 40 percent chance of rain. As of yet, she said, they have not turned anyone away, for lack of room.

“We’ll make every effort to accommodate anyone who needs shelter, or a good hot meal and a warm place to sleep,” Burns said.

As with many similar organizations, government funding for shelters has dwindled, and costs will rise, since Burns anticipates being open many more nights this winter season. As Burns explained, many shelters received contingency funding to open early in the season, but “that didn’t really help, because the weather wasn’t that bad.”

She anticipates the need to be open past their scheduled end of February closing, and so the group is naturally seeking donations and contingency funding, so that they can extend their availability to the homeless community. The Covenant Church has also agreed to provide a facility should Friends in Deed locate enough funding to stay open longer in the season.

The Pasadena Bad Weather Shelter is at Pasadena Covenant Church, 539 North Lake Avenue, Pasadena 91101, and is open from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. on rainy or cold days. (818) 915-8111 after 12 noon. For more, visit www.friendsindeedpas.org/