Charles Partridge has a house on Highway 58 that has no heat or electricity, so he stayed at the cold weather shelter at the Chattanooga Community Kitchen almost every night this winter.
“God’s gift. That’s how I look at the shelter,” Partridge said. “God is providing for me.”
The shelter protected more than 700 people — ages 23 months to 80 years old — throughout nearly four months this winter. It opened Nov. 13 and had its final night of the season on Sunday.
“It gave me a place to stay,” said 42-year-old Anthony Smith, who has been homeless off and on for eight years.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency confirmed that 30 people in the state died this year because of weather-related causes. Those deaths included Douglas King, a 64-year-old homeless man in Chattanooga who died of hypothermia while sleeping on 11th Street near the railroad tracks.
Community Kitchen Executive Director Jens Christensen said in an email that the shelter averaged 105 people a night, and those people stayed an average of 16 nights. Some stayed even on warm nights, he said.
A man visiting the Community Kitchen on Wednesday said he wished the cold-weather shelter stayed open longer or that people could at least sleep on the porch — it’s safer than an abandoned building or under a bridge, he said.
The Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition’s 2015 Point-In-Time count found 635 homeless people. That included 135 children, 24 of them unsheltered, as well as 80 veterans, 17 of them on the street.
With the shelter open, the Community Kitchen incurred the expenses of being nearly a 24-hour operation.
Building maintenance, laundry, salaries, broken faucets and four broken toilets were among the expenses. The city helped with a portion of the funding, but a lot of the costs were absorbed by the kitchen and funded through donations.
“For each person who stayed warm in the building and for each life saved from the elements, I say thank you,” Christensen said.
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.