As temperatures routinely plunge below freezing, Turning Point of Wareham is working to keep homeless people out of the cold.

Last winter the organization created the Emergency Response Plan, a program which provides homeless individuals a hotel room during extreme weather and when temperatures drop below 20 degrees. So far this year, the program has provided shelter to 11 individuals in December and January for a total of five nights. Last year, it provided shelter to 19 individuals for a total of two nights.

The Emergency Response Plan kicks in when the weather forecast predicts low temperatures for the next day and a half.

“We don’t wait for it to happen to bring them in, we base it off the best forecast that we have,” said Turning Point President Chuck McCullough.

Those who accept the provided room also receive some food, usually a pizza when they first check in.

“Not all of them go in when these extreme weather events occur,” McCullough said. “Often local family members or friends will bring the unhoused into their homes to ride out the event.”

McCullough described the Emergency Response Plan as a “stop-gap” measure to replace the Nights of Hospitality program which the Covid pandemic ended.

For 13 years Nights of Hospitality provided shelter during winter to those without housing. Hosted by a group of clergy, the program offered a warm place to sleep for 13 weeks of the year at various churches throughout Wareham.

McCullough, who was one of the coordinators of the program, said funding and a suitable location stand in the way of restarting Nights of Hospitality.

“We at Turning Point do not have the treasury to support paid staff, it would be at least 13 weeks seven nights a week and at least two, if not three, paid staff members,” McCullough said.

Furthermore, many of the churches lack things like carbon monoxide sensors and other safety measures required by the town and state for overnight stays.

“Certainly there would be some churches, but not all churches have the infrastructure to support it,” McCullough said. “We had more churches at the beginning than we did at the end of the [13 years].”

The hotel rooms Turning Point provides cost the organization roughly $85 per night per person.

A significant portion of the funding for the program comes from the Wareham Clergy Association’s “Walk for the Homeless” which is held annually in May. This year Turning Point also received a donation from Southcoast Health.

In January the organization also received donations of food from Damien’s Food Pantry for the individuals staying in a hotel.