Kanawha Valley Collective says warming centers served about 110 people nightly during extreme cold

Tracy Strickland, a representative of the Kanawha Valley Collective, told Charleston City Council on Feb. 2 that the city's winter warming centers have been heavily used during a prolonged cold snap and urged continued support for the program.

Strickland said the centers and partner sites saw an average of about “110 people a night” in January, with a low of 88 on Jan. 30 and a high of 128 on Jan. 27. She added that staff and volunteers kept one site open for 60 continuous hours during the recent severe weather to ensure people had a safe place to stay. "Our goal is to not have anybody pass away," she said.

Why it matters: Council members and the mayor praised warming-center partners during the meeting and linked the centers to a broader city response to snow and ice. Council member Taylor, in remarks following public comment, blamed a recent death of an unhoused person found on a bench as a reason to sustain warming centers and services.

Strickland cautioned that the attendance figures are preliminary: they "haven't input them into the database yet," she said, and staff expect duplicates because of misspelled names. She described operational challenges during the storm — volunteers and staff sometimes could not travel because partner bus service was down — and said partners triaged those gaps by front-loading staff and keeping centers open overnight.

Council members acknowledged the work of the collective and other partners. Council member Taylor said the warming centers can prevent deaths among vulnerable residents and commended continued support from the council.

Next steps: The remarks were offered during the public-comment portion of the Feb. 2 council meeting; council members publicly recognized and praised warming-center staff and partners. The collective did not request a specific dollar amount during the remarks; any funding or policy action would require formal referral or a future agenda item.