Cold weather shelters open in the Capital Area

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - When temperatures drop to 39 degrees or below Michael Acaldo starts preparing St. Vincent De Paul for more overnight stays.

“That the colder it gets, the more people desire to get off the streets. Our desire is that everybody would like to be off the streets every night of the year. That’s just not the situation of homelessness right now,” Acaldo said.

In parishes around the area, many folks struggle to find a warm place to stay.

One woman is working to help the homeless here in Ascension Parish when there’s no shelter here.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls. We’ve gotten calls and even Facebook posts about people living in their vans. They’re bundling up, but there’s no place for a place to go,” Danyell Henriques said.

Henriques helps get folks off the streets in Ascension and into hotels, and motels. Or even shelters in East Baton Rouge.

“It’s a struggle because the hotel rates vary anywhere from $65 a night to $300 a night and sometimes St. Vincent De Pail is full. So, in a situation like that, the best that we can do is give them blankets, pillows, and food and hygiene stuff and like super bags just to help them to get through the night,” Henriques said.

Her organization Heaven’s Care - as well as St. Vincent De Paul- need help with blankets, sleeping bags, toiletries, and food donations.

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