The reason we do this is because if you look around Denver, you look around other cities in Colorado. The cities have taken it upon themselves or nonprofits that they could find a place to make this happen. It's the right thing to do. People die here. And if they don't die, they're in trauma, and homeless people are and live a life of trauma anyway. And being out in the cold, it's just the compassionate thing to do and something the community needs to take on.

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We talked about for years that there's a need to have a place for people to go when it's really cold outside in the winter. But then the city manager, Jose, said to us, if you want to get city Council approval, you're going to have to get neighborhood support. So we as a council recruited a bunch of volunteers, and we went through this whole neighborhood from sixth Street to First Street, Third Avenue to Seventh Avenue. We surveyed the entire neighborhood. 88% of the people here supported having it here. We took that back to the council, and the council approved it five to nothing. And I got to tell you in years previous and we've had experience with the council. It was always a no go. It was just, you know, oh my God, that neighborhood. But this year they approved it. Five zero. And not only that, they gave us about 12 and $12,000 to transport people from the transit center here and back.

We forecast the temperature out 48 hours in advance. That looks like it's going to be 15 or below. We then we decide to open it. We've hired two coordinators. Those coordinators will at that point make that decision at 6:00 in the evening. And then they make a call for volunteers. And if we get all the volunteers in place, then we open, on the day it's going to turn 15 degrees and below. And then at 6 to, 5:30 evening, everybody shows up. We have the transportation from the transit center at 6:30 in the evening. They'll bring them down here, and then they shuffle them back in the morning. Manna provides a meal. And so we have a warm meal for them when they come. And they'll either have a breakfast here if it's on the weekend, or we transport them back up to manna where they get a warm breakfast and coffee. And the important thing is they get to sleep. And in couple of weeks ago when we opened that, it was open for one night, we had a family, two children, mom and dad, and we had four other people that night, and they immediately went to sleep. I mean, this is what they need.

Print and sign their name. But I just don't want them to, like, fly.

So far what we've noticed is, like, the first night we opened, we only had a couple folks. Last night was our, I think fifth night that we'd run this season and we had like, 24 people at one point. So just like, yeah, increasing attendance and just, like, need for it as the word gets out. Yeah. And I think just around the gap of just like, yeah, like the place where these people can go.

From you to other people as I hear it is suffering. Yes.

I'm so thankful for this place to open, and, be there for my people to survive instead of being found as a body bag and whoever started this, has got a heart.

I'm only happy too otherwise I'd be sleeping on the streets, so my people safe.

It's a warm, safe, welcoming place to come.

When we got approval from the city council, they gave us a resolution and a resolution allowed us to operate for, this year. They can shut us down if we have any serious issues related to the warming center. Within a week. And so this is a trial for us. And if everything goes well, we've been told we could come back and apply for an ordinance which would allow us to be open under certain conditions every year. So that's what we're working toward, is just trying to show that this is a wonderful service that we can operate it safely.

I just think when you see people walking around, when it's zero degrees and they're walking around a town and you say, why can't they find a place to sleep, that's the need. This is the right thing to do and what we have to do. The question is, how do we get it done? So we were able to get it done this year with City Council support. That's amazing.

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