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Helping the homeless stay warm
Posted: 12.02.2011 at 9:23 PM
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Homeless men and women are invited to stay at shelters in Colorado Springs.  / FOX21: Sade Malloy
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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Keeping the homeless warm this winter means keeping them off the streets.

But as the temperatures continue to fall the number of homeless in need of a warm place to sleep goes up.

So Colorado Springs Police Department's Homeless Outreach Team is walking the popular camping sites everyday.

"Tents would keep them sheltered for the most part, but they don't have that, so if they are camping it's usually without a tent," Brett Iverson, of CSPD said.

CSPD tried to help a homeless man laying on the ground at Acacia Park Friday.

He's a regular in the homeless scene and is one of the roughly 200 in the city that need somewhere to sleep.

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"We might go to an overflow because of how cold it is going to be. [If you] know somebody out there please help them get down here so they don't get frost bite or freeze to death," Gene Morris of the R.J. Montgomery Center said.

The Salvation Army's R.J. Montgomery Center has been open since the first part of November and Thursday they had their highest number of homeless so far this season with 37 people.

The center only holds 45, and they're expecting to hit full capacity soon.

On top of their warming center, R.J. Montgomery houses a homeless shelter and as of Friday the men's side is full and has a waiting list.

But not every homeless person is looking for a bed at a shelter.

We met a man who prefers to sleep on the streets.  He wants to remain anonymous.

"I have really bad PTSD so i don't want to hurt nobody and stay out," the man said.

So, armed with gloves, sweaters and bags he plans to ride out the recent winter weather, which goes against the city's no camping ordinance and leaves him vulnerable to CSPD.

Once R.J. Montgomery's Center is full the Springs Rescue Mission will hold 20 people in an overflow shelter.

If you'd like to help the homeless population, R.J. Montgomery is in need of bars of soap, towels and shampoo.

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