BOISE – With temperatures getting higher as we enter the summer months, Our Path Home is launching their Summer Cooling plan to provide expanded summer services for community members experiencing homelessness.
The Summer Cooling plan is a partnership effort to meet the demand for safe and accessible shelter options this summer. All enhanced services are available from June 9 until the end of September. Specific locations and services can be found online: Summer Cooling ‘Resource Guide’.
Our Path Home collaborated with local partners including Interfaith Sanctuary, Corpus Christi House, Boise Public Library, CATCH’s Street Outreach and the Treasure Valley Family YMCA to ensure that all of our neighbors have a safe place to recover from the intense heat.
“We're witnessing the weather becoming more volatile and our community’s most vulnerable members are experiencing these changes firsthand,” said Gerri Graves, member of Our Path Home’s Lived Experience Board. “Luckily, we have places where folks can go during the worst of it to escape the sweltering heat.”
“Our Path Home is grateful to our service partners that are providing a safe space for those experiencing homelessness to escape the heat - it is heartening to see our partners step up to the plate and fill that gap of a daytime safe space; they are quite literally saving lives,” she said.
Extreme heat poses a significant health risks; according to the CDC, the effects of extreme heat kill about 1,220 people each year in the United States. Heat risk is not experienced equally across members of our community. People experiencing homelessness are at immediate risk of exposure-related illnesses and negative health outcomes, especially those without shelter.
Every year, the cooling locations provide a safe place for people experiencing homelessness –and anyone who might need to access them– during the hottest times in our community.
Our Path Home’s Summer Cooling plan scales services through a combination of:
- Expanded daytime shelter hours of operation
- Seasonal partnerships with community organizations offering additional indoor cooling facilities
- Increased street outreach efforts with season supplies distributed to folks seeking respite from the hear
- Summer Cooling guides to help people navigate to services and resources
Community partners and public locations that want to have copies of the Summer Cooling ‘Resource Guide’ can request printed copies by contacting info@ourpathhome.org.
Addressing the summer heat in Ada County requires a community-wide effort, and anyone can support our Summer Cooling plans through a financial or item-based donation.
Donate directly to the Emergency Overflow Program, which gives partner agencies funding to expand services and community gifts help grow and sustain efforts to expand emergency services to those in need.
Our Path Home partners are also asking for donations of much needed seasonal supplies including bottled water, sports drinks, hats, sunscreen or cooling rags. For a complete list of items in need and how to donate them visit the Summer Cooling ‘Items in Need’.
For anyone experiencing a housing crisis, get connected to help by calling the Housing Crisis Hotline: 208-336-HOME (4663)
About Our Path Home
Our Path Home is the public/private partnership comprising more than 30 agencies committed to ensuring homelessness is increasingly rare, brief, and singular experience in Ada County. For more information on Our Path Home, please visit www.ourpathhome.org.