WFC is happy to announce that the Women and Families Center will be hosting the first Warming Center for homeless adults and youth in Meriden in a very long time (possibly first ever)!!
New Opportunities (https://www.cafca.org/agencies/noi/) and Women and Families Center are pleased to collaborate and offer a Meriden Warming Center location for the 2024 cold weather season. The warming center will be located at Women and Families building at 169 Colony Street, Meriden, CT and operated by New Opportunities. This service will start January 16th at 7 PM, running nightly until April 1st. The warming center will close each morning at 7 AM, except during severe cold weather activations from Governor Lamont. The warming center will be able to accommodate 30 individuals(male and female) nightly on a first come first serve basis. Five beds will be dedicated to our MMW youth population ( 18- 24 years old). A light dinner and breakfast will be provided.
Wayne Valaitis inspecting thirty new Army cots in the new warming center
Photo by: Dave Zajac Hearst Connecticut Media
As mentioned above the Warming Center will be in operation 7 days per week opening at 7pm and closing at 7am. In order to provide a safe environment for our participants and staff we will have a Security Guard on duty Monday – Friday from 10:30am – 6:30pm. The Warming Center Security Guard will be here daily from 6:30pm – 7:30am. On days where the Governor does activate the Severe Cold Protocol people in the warming center will remain in the basement area until the Cold Weather Protocol is lifted. On those days the Warming Center staff and Security Guard will be on duty for that entire time as well. We plan on providing a very safe and clean facility for all staff and participants. The warming center will operate in the 3 classrooms in the basement and they will use the bathrooms in that area. We have hired a cleaning service that will be conducting deep cleans 3 days per week and the Warming Center staff will be cleaning in between. We also would like to provide breakfast every morning for the residents and are looking to local churches, civic groups or businesses that would be interested in providing breakfast for 30 individual a few time a month. If you are interested in helping with breakfast feel free to call me at 475-775-4890 or send an email to [email protected].
Naturally, there will be added costs for this operation I will be sending out a fund raising appeal later this week for those who are willing to support this very needed service to some of Central Connecticut’s most vulnerable residents.
