Record Breaking Numbers Seen at Siena Francis House
"470 on campus. And that's just a regular night."
There are no more open beds at the Siena Francis House.
"I love it, it's a little crowded."
In fact, they're over capacity seeing record numbers. Hundreds of people sleeping on the floor to avoid the dangerous cold.
The manager at the shelter is squeezing everybody in.
"Can't turn them away because they, we'll kill them. They'll die out there. We let everybody in, if they're hungry we'll feed them. If they need coats or hats we'll give it to them."
When temperatures dropped to bitter cold single digits, the men and women with nowhere to go knew they had to seek shelter to survive.
"Yeah yeah, it's pretty tough." "We know that we shouldn't be walking around downtown and all that cause we could get frost bite or injury you know."
Bar Polchow manages the evenings at Siena Francis House, he says numbers there have been up all year long.
In 2012 the high for Siena Francis was 280 people, this years high is 360.
"It's like a record, we've never had that many here before."
Giving people in need a place to stay and a warm roof over their head as this cold snap continues to grip Omaha.
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