The emergency winter homeless shelter at the former DoubleTree hotel in Central Park sheltered about 140 people a night over the weekend.
The opening of The Aspen as an emergency winter shelter was controversial. After Mayor Mike Johnston and homeless advocates said last week the city is experiencing a critical shortage of winter beds, his administration activated The Aspen — which doubles as a long-term non-congregate homeless shelter — as an emergency cold weather shelter.
With the additional shelter, the city had room for about 700 people in its cold-weather shelters. A total of more than 600 people came to the network of five shelters, including The Aspen.
“As it got colder/snowier the number of people utilizing cold weather shelter went up—we were at mid/high 500s throughout the weekend,” Julia Marvin, a spokesperson for HOST, wrote in an email.
The move defied Councilmember Shontel Lewis’ pleas for Johnston to quit concentrating poverty in her district and spread the shelters citywide.
Lewis could not be immediately reached for comment.
Last month, council members voted to reject a contract that would have allowed the city to open the cold-weather shelter with 250 beds at the hotel. The city was able to skirt that by opening the site for short-term emergencies. It also limited the capacity of the site.
