The seven-day forecast for the Wilmington area shows lows in the teens and 20s, with wind chill taking it down to single-digits on the coldest nights this weekend. And for those without access to shelter and heat, that can be deadly, according to Sally Learned, the executive director of the Brunswick Partnership for Housing. In her county, a lot of unhoused people live in encampments in the woods.
"Cold kills, and a lot of folks that are back in that situation are not in the best of health to begin with. So if you're health compromised, or you're elderly, or you're a young child, say eight-month-old, sleeping in a car, and you're facing a 15-degree night, cold kills," she told WHQR.
Learned said she placed a family in a local warming shelter in just that situation — an infant and two parents, now staying at Brunswick County’s only warming shelter. She said the demand is probably there for more shelter, but it’s very spread out across the county.
"It's hard to get a feeling on it, because, again, the county's so huge and sprawling, and there's people everywhere. And a lot of times people will find a hole, even if it's an unsafe hole to crawl into in cold weather. So they may be sleeping on somebody's couch, or a woman may be having to pay with sexual favors to even be on that couch," she said.
But there are other options. On the coldest night this week, Brunswick Partnership for Housing put up 40 people in hotel rooms. They've had as much demand in the past six months as they had in the previous entire fiscal year, Learned said.
"The bulk of our shelter money comes from donations. And the only reason we can shelter in Brunswick County, the way we do, is because of donations from churches, individuals, and other organizations that fund us," she said.
Learned says she'd like to see a network of churches with pop-up warming shelters around the entire county, but there are barriers. Still, there's a few bright spots.
In Shallotte, Christian Recovery Centers, Inc. has opened its doors as a warming shelter — it’s the second winter season they’ve done so. And they have plenty of room before their program scales up in the coming months, according to Chief Operations Officer Tyler Smith. They have 25 beds available, and only seven were occupied earlier this week.
"We're really just trying to be a temporary place for people to go find help, even if it's not with us. Let us be the referral source for you," Smith said.
They had seven sleeping people on site one night this week, and most people simply walk to their location. Unlike their rehab programs, the Warming Shelter doesn’t come with behavior expectations like sobriety, although alcohol, drugs, and tobacco can’t be used on site. They’ll have amnesty boxes for anything the overnight guests want to keep safe and private.
"We're just trying to give them a place to sleep and not give them a big hassle about what they're doing with the rest of their life," Smith said. "We have had some people who admitted they were addicted to drugs, who came in, they got to know us, and they said, 'Oh, this isn't anything like I thought it was. I think I'm going to give this a shot.' And they ended up staying and going through the program. So we've had, we've had a few success stories come just because they were cold and ended up completing a program and going on to be successful."
Across the river in Wilmington, the Warming Shelter ILM, the region’s pop-up cold weather shelter, has been open since Saturday and announced that it's extending through Wednesday, February 4. The shelter has been operating at full capacity with a cap of 125 people. It’s seeking additional volunteers and donations to manage the extended opening.
Shelters like Good Shepherd Center are adding cots to help keep folks warm, and are all but bursting at the seams. The Healing Place also added 18 additional beds, and they’re all filling up every night. The Salvation Army Center of Hope has managed to house some of its residents more permanently during the cold snap, opening up a few of its beds. But it has plans to provide additional cots in case demand outpaces their typical capacity during the cold weather.
Jason McCoy is one of the people staying at the Salvation Army. Like the vast majority of unhoused people counted by the Continuum of Care since 2020, he’s homeless for the first time.
"Most of my life I've been housed, and that's not been a problem. I worked. My health is in decline. I had two heart attacks. I have five stents in my heart," he said. "I've always done kitchen work. It's difficult, and I started to have seizures a little over a year ago, and that ended up causing me to be on the street.”
That rise in first-time homelessness — to a high of 86% of homeless individuals in 2024 — is largely attributed to a rise in housing costs in the Cape Fear Region.
For McCoy, that looked like spending a year on the street before landing a bed at the Salvation Army, and he’s grateful for that. He got the opportunity through Living Hope Day Center, the area’s downtown daytime shelter for the homeless. He still spends time there when he's turned out of the Salvation Army for the day, partially because he wants to check in on people he's started to really care about.
"There are a lot of new faces in here over the past month, typically in the winter, the shelters fill up, and it's people that you really don't see outside of the shelter," he said.
There were 90-plus people signing in each day this week, as the day center expanded its hours in the face of the cold. Executive Director Tony Perez says they’re looking for opportunities to expand the rest of the year, too.
"We are actively trying to figure out a way to come up with our own space, rather than partnering with First Baptist Church," Perez said.
That would let them operate more days of the week, and even on weekends, rather than just Monday through Wednesday.
Perez hopes to see more resources become available — because the need can be deadly serious. He said one of the regulars at the day center was found dead in the cold last month. Perez doesn’t want to see that happen to anyone else, ever again.
