An overnight shelter space that opened Saturday evening to ensure folks would have a warm place to sleep is now closed “until the need arises again.”
Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the city’s homeless solutions division, said in an email to volunteers Thursday that she and the Homeless Response Team appreciate volunteers’ support.
“Your dedication to ensuring that our neighbor experiencing homelessness have a warm and safe place to stay during the cold months has made a tremendous impact on our community,” she wrote.
Bosch-Hastings wrote that the city has been able to meet the needs of people seeking shelter during the recent weather, which started with an ice storm; then a blizzard dropped nearly a foot of snow on Lawrence, followed by three days of extremely cold temperatures and wind chills.
“Recently, we’ve seen a significant decrease in attendance at our winter emergency shelters, which is a positive indicator that more individuals are finding stable housing or utilizing other available services,” Bosch-Hastings wrote. “As a result, we will be pausing the operation of our overflow shelters until the need arises again.”
The city could see 1 to 3 inches of snow Thursday night into Friday, according to a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, but it should be nothing like the conditions over the weekend.
The Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St., is the primary place for people to seek shelter during extreme weather. Lawrence Transit Route 1 stops at the shelter. Transit’s trip planner can help folks figure out how to get there from their current location; that’s at this link. Route 1 leaves the stop at Seventh and Vermont streets starting at 6 a.m., and the last downtown stop is at 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.
If the Lawrence Community Shelter hits capacity — around 140 people — the city is opening overflow shelters at local churches to ensure that everyone has a warm place to sleep. People can call or text 785-813-9483 to confirm whether an overflow shelter is open and seek help. The winter shelter helpline can also be reached via email at wintershelter@lawrenceks.org.
First United Methodist Church, 946 Vermont St., is the first overflow shelter location to open. The church has provided shelter for folks over the last several nights. University Community of Christ also opened as a day shelter Sunday and Monday, when city facilities were closed because of the blizzard.
“Please know that your continued commitment to this work is invaluable, and we deeply appreciate the time and energy you’ve invested,” Bosch-Hastings wrote. “While overflow shelters may be temporarily paused, your support and readiness to step in when needed ensure that we can respond quickly to any future needs.”
See more severe weather info and links to resources below. See this page for more weather coverage.
See the full bus route and schedule at this link. See realtime bus location info at this link. Buses are free to ride for 2025.
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Severe weather resources
Get warm in Lawrence:
• See this page for locations to get warm during the day and overnight, where to get help for pets and more.
National Weather Service local office (Topeka):
• Find the latest weather forecast info and severe weather advisories for the Lawrence area at this link.
• In the event of rapidly changing severe weather, such as tornadoes, the NWS posts frequent updates on Twitter, @NWSTopeka. You do not need a Twitter account to see tweets from NWS.
• NWS is also on Facebook, facebook.com/NWSTopeka.
• Call 785-234-2592 to hear the forecast.
City of Lawrence snow info:
• The city has snow information and a map at lawrenceks.org/snow that shows information about road conditions and where snowplows have been. The city typically begins snow and ice control for residential roadways when 2 or more inches of snowfall or icing occurs.
Douglas County Emergency Management:
• Follow @DgCoEM on Twitter or Douglas County, KS- Emergency Management on Facebook, facebook.com/dgcoem.
• Sign up to receive emergency alerts at dgcoks.org/emalerts.
• Find lots of tips on severe weather and other emergency preparedness on DgCoEM’s website at douglascountyks.org/emergency-management.
• Report storm damage (for non-emergencies only, and after storm danger has passed) by calling the nonemergency dispatch line at 785-843-0250 or 785-832-7509.
Evergy outages:
• Check the status of power outages on the Evergy outage map, outagemap.evergy.com.
• Report a power outage at evergy.com/report-outage, or call 800-544-4857.
• For down powerlines, call Evergy’s emergency line, 800-383-1183, if above-ground lines are arcing or making contact with trees or vegetation. Call 911 immediately if overhead power lines are on the ground or a fire starts.
Air quality:
• Check the current air quality index in Lawrence and elsewhere through AirNow, airnow.gov.
Latest Lawrence news:
Tom Harper/Lawrence Times
