{"id":141462,"date":"2026-02-03T01:55:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/141462\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T01:55:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:55:30","slug":"hillsborough-county-cold-shelters-provide-warm-place-to-sleep-for-dozens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/141462\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillsborough\u00a0County cold shelters provide warm place to sleep for dozens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770083729_369_voh3w8wcjewhlux4.jpg\" alt=\"Cold shelters open as temperatures plunge\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">TAMPA, Fla. &#8211; Temperatures quickly dropped to dangerous conditions on Saturday, leaving many without a warm place to spend the night.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Cold shelters are opening their doors to welcome people inside so they have a safe and warm place to spend the night.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Dr. Reba Haley is the pastor at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hillsborough\/tampa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Tampa Bay<\/a> Mission of Hope. She said her mission of serving the homeless is personal.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;I was homeless myself before, being in a domestic violence situation,&#8221; Haley said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">She knows exactly what her clients are going through.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/vlcsnap-2026-02-01-13h10m42s455.png\" alt=\"\" data-v-0dea8073=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;We&#8217;re seeing an increase of women that are being victims of domestic violence and abuse, and that are, you know, some of them have had their children taken,&#8221; Haley said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Haley runs one of the seven shelters in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hillsborough\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> Hillsborough County<\/a> open this weekend because of the cold temperatures.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">What they&#8217;re saying:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;They are people too,&#8221; Haley said. &#8220;Even though they&#8217;re homeless, and they have addictions, they have mental [illness], they still are God&#8217;s children, and they deserve the decency of housing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">MORE NEWS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/news\/body-found-water-park-st-pete\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Body found in water near Jungle Prada de Narv\u00e1ez Park in St. Pete: PCSO<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">Haley said she does so much more than provide emergency warming shelter.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">She works with the people that come through her door to get them off the streets for good.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/vlcsnap-2026-02-01-13h10m54s443.png\" alt=\"\" data-v-0dea8073=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;Being in the community for as long as I&#8217;ve been in it, we know what&#8217;s available,&#8221; Haley said. &#8220;So we link them with resources to help them, to move them from permanent housing, but mainly to transitional housing, into permanent housing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">This is not easy work, and it requires a lot of steps to get a person to permanent housing.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;Comprehensive support services for them with parenting classes, employment, anything we can do after we move you from homelessness, temporary homelessness, to transitional housing,&#8221; Haley said. &#8220;It&#8217;s really a wraparound sort of, this is just a drop spot, but we need to move you from this spot to transitional housing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">She wants other groups to step up.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;We can&#8217;t do it alone, we&#8217;re at capacity, but the county needs other faith-based agencies to help and provide hope for those that are less fortunate,&#8221; Haley said.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-2899190a=\"\">What you can do:<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">If you want to help, Haley said there is always room for you at Tampa Bay Mission of Hope.<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">&#8220;We need their support. This is a community project. These are our neighbors,&#8221; Haley said. &#8220;These are neighbors, so we need the community to support us, to help us, to help these people that are less fortunate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-2899190a=\"\">This church also provides clothing and a food pantry for the community and accepts donations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information in this story comes from interviews done by FOX 13&#8217;s Danielle Zulkosky.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hillsborough\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-2899190a=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hillsborough County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. &#8211; Temperatures quickly dropped to dangerous conditions on Saturday, leaving many without a warm place to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,115,135,137,136,628],"class_list":["post-141462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-fl","tag-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}