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Shelters In Need Of Blankets And Winter Coats

January 7, 2015 / 7:07 PM CST / CBS Texas

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ARLINGTON (CBSDFW.COM) - A mild winter has led to a cold, hard fact at many shelters; they lack the supplies they need to keep people warm.

When donors drop off supplies at shelters, they're usually not thinking about donating blankets and coats when the winter has been milder than most recent ones.

"You know if I had to bundle my children up and take them to school and I didn't have a coat or didn't have a blanket or some place to sleep tonight... they have a lot of sympathy for that," said Janel Holt, assistant director of Arlington Life Shelter. "But when it's warmer weather it just doesn't click as much."

Holt and shelter workers spent Wednesday preparing places for people to sleep wherever they can find room.

"Tonight we'll probably have well over 100 people here," Holt said. "Our capacity is in the mid to high 80's but we will probably wind up having more people than that just because we would rather have people sleeping on the floor than freezing to death in the park."

And many will leave with the blanket the shelter gives them.

"So, we may have 100 blankets today but we may only have five tomorrow," Holt said.

In the shelter's closets, there are piles of sheets and towels and very few blankets.

Other shelters, such as First United Methodist Church Fort Worth, report similar blanket shortages. Union Gospel Mission's director said his Fort Worth operation is desperately short of coats for the people it serves.

At Arlington Life Shelter where families often stay, the shortage often leads to tough decisions.

"It's really hard because we have to prioritize," Holt said. "We have to look and think about well, we want to meet the needs of the children first two are coming in who are really, really cold. And then of course we have some of the pregnant moms were coming in. But then we also got the dads."

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