In Fort Pierce, a cold weather shelter is scheduled to open tonight to help people who need a shower, a hot meal and a safe place to sleep at the Percy Peek Gym on Avenue D.
The shelter opens whenever temperatures hover at or under the low 40s. It’s open tonight and tomorrow for anyone in the Fort Pierce area with nowhere else to go to ride out the cold.
It’s a welcomed sight for people like John Reese
“I just took a shower,” said Reese. “I might want to do it again.”
Reese has been coming to this cold-weather shelter for the last three years after he was evicted from his home.
City Commissioner Curtis Johnson says the shelter came about after a fire in an abandoned home.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had situations in our city where the un-sheltered took it upon themselves to try to keep warm,” said Johnson. “It caused a big house fire. Amber was spreading throughout our city, and it was just an unsafe and inopportune environment.”
Pastor Hazel Hoylman has been setting up shelters like these for more than a decade. But has been putting on this one at Percy Peek Gym for the last three years