Corpus Christi is quickly responding to dropping temperatures by opening two warming shelters, giving residents a safe place to stay warm.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Temperatures are falling fast this weekend, and the city of Corpus Christi has responded by opening two warming shelters across the city.<\/p>\n
One by one, people made their way into the Ben Garza Gym. It opened a few hours earlier than planned \u2014 something Joe and Mary Garza say they are thankful for.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s the best place to stay warm so you won\u2019t freeze to death,\u201d Joe said.<\/p>\n
They say they\u2019re not taking any chances, especially since Mary is anemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been homeless for 11 years, and we\u2019ve got nowhere else to go. That\u2019s the only place where we can have our dog,\u201d Joe said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Carlos Munoz and Angel skipped the warming shelter during last year\u2019s freeze \u2014 but this time, they decided to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it\u2019s cold out here. We wanted to be somewhere warm, where they help us out too,\u201d Munoz said.<\/p>\n
Strategic business manager and shelter lead Scott Greene said the city is running two shelters around the clock, staffed by city employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to get as many people warm, safe and fed as we can. We\u2019re set to hold 100 here, and we also have another facility \u2014 the FEMA Dome on the Del Mar campus. We\u2019re probably going to do about 100 there as well, if possible,\u201d Greene said.<\/p>\n
City Manager Peter Zanoni said the city is also offering free rides to help people get to the warming shelters.<\/p>\n
\u201cRTA is a very big partner of ours. They are providing free transportation to any one of these shelters up until 10 p.m. each night,\u201d Zanoni said. \u201cDuring the daytime, they\u2019ll provide free transportation here, as well as to any of our warming centers at libraries and senior centers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zanoni said both shelters are open to anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are really minimal to no requirements. We\u2019re not looking for IDs. We\u2019re not doing any type of searching for drugs or weapons,\u201d Zanoni said. \u201cWe do have Corpus Christi police at both centers monitoring to make sure people stay safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Munoz hopes people will listen to experts and take the cold weather seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they can stay warm, not get sick out there and not pass away from something they don\u2019t deserve. You can just come over here, get warm, talk to people and feel safe,\u201d Munoz said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi is quickly responding to dropping temperatures by opening two warming shelters, giving residents a safe place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-137263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}