The Dunbar Community Center will be closed Wednesday night despite the dangerously chilly temperatures. Credit: City of Little Rock
Temperatures are forecast to get as low as 22 degrees tonight, but the city of Little Rock’s emergency shelter will be closed.
That sets Little Rock apart from several other cities in the area. Overnight shelters for the unhoused will be open Wednesday in North Little Rock, Cabot and Jacksonville.
The city of Little Rock has operated an overnight shelter at the Dunbar Community Center for several nights in lightweight of the frigid weather gripping Central Arkansas. Wednesday night’s temperatures might be slightly higher than those on Monday or Tuesday, when overnight lows dipped into the teens, but it will still be dangerously chilly.
Nonetheless, Little Rock city spokesman Aaron Sadler said the Little Rock shelter won’t be open tonight.
Sadler said the city announced last week that the short-lived emergency shelter would be open from Sunday until Wednesday morning. The city’s emergency management division has not recommended any changes to that timeline, he said.
Aaron Reddin, executive director of homeless nonprofit The Van, criticized the city’s decision in a Facebook post today:
KARK TV’s latest hourly forecast says Little Rock temps are expected drop from 39 degrees at 5 p.m. to 27 degrees at midnight. Temperatures could drop to 22 degrees by 7 a.m., the forecast says. The overnight low for Thursday is also 22, and Friday’s low is 27. Nighttime temperatures should finally stay above freezing by Saturday.
Little Rock’s “Extreme Cold Weather Emergency Shelter Plan” lays out the triggers for opening the shelter. The plan calls for opening when temperatures are forecast to reach 15 degrees or lower for two consecutive days, or when freezing temps are accompanied by a Winter Weather Advisory or Winter Storm Warning from the National Weather Service. Sadler has said that portion of the plan has been adjusted and the shelter will open at the advent of “any winter weather event deemed dangerous to the life safety of unsheltered individuals.”
Here’s some info on other local shelters that will be open tonight:
North Little Rock
2700 Willow St.
6 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Jacksonville
First Presbyterian Church
1208 W. Main St., Jacksonville
6 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Cabot
The Community Place
2102 S. 2nd St., Cabot
6 p.m. to 8 a.m.
