SPOKANE, Wash. — Portable showers are available starting Saturday outside of Spokane's only warming center.
"Our shower trailer is completely winterproof, so it has heaters, it's insulated, it's able to run in any degree," Garcia said. "One benefit is that people aren't walking in the middle of the night out to the bathroom area, and it's outside out there. And that's our biggest concern, our elderly patients or people in wheelchairs."
The South Cannon Street Warming Center, ran by Jewels Helping Hands, do not have indoor restrooms or a shower for the winter. According to city spokesperson Marlene Feist, crews are waiting to start work on the bathrooms until after the winter, because construction will cause a large part of the center to close.
This would force Jewels Helping Hands to take in fewer people, but the center has already had to turn away more people due to an increase in traffic.
"We've definitely seen an increase of people coming by. We're still full every night," said Jewels Helping Hands founder Julie Garcia.
They've had to turn away between 25 and 30 people a night because the center is at capacity, according to Garcia.
But for the 98 people that do have a bed, they have to go outside to take a shower or use the bathroom. This is also the case for the approximately 150 people that go through the center during the daytime hours.
People have been walking to the nearby YMCA or using porta-potties in the mean time, Garcia said. But the porta-potties can get slick in the cold temperatures.
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The following video is a report on overflow warming center space provided by Catholic Charities.