Tulsa Dream Center Provides Shelter During Cold Spell

Some warming centers are closing since temperatures are above freezing.

Several churches and nonprofits across Green Country stepped up this week to give people a warm place to stay.

As the sun does its job of melting away the snow and ice, many volunteers inside the Tulsa Dream Center are cleaning and packing up after working around the clock to keep those without a home out of the cold. 

Tim Newton is the executive director of the Dream Center. He says the facility opened up on Saturday as a warming center.

"We had a trickle of people coming in, but we knew once the snow started falling down, there would be more and more people that wanted to come in, and so we got out on social media, and our teams got in the vehicles we have,” said Newton. “We have three vans and a minibus and we went and we hit the road. We started picking up our unhoused community and just bringing them in. "

The Dream Center housed more than a hundred people at its west campus since the colder temperatures hit, but Newton says many people and other organizations stepped in to make that possible.

"All those different great organizations just doing the work on a regular basis, yearly,” he said. “Every single day, they are working with the unhoused community. We are just coming in during just this season.

He says so many people who used the facility were grateful for a warm place to lay their heads.

"I heard so many thank yous on Sunday as I was driving around picking people up, like thank you for picking us up, and we didn't know the weather was going to be this bad,” Newton said. “Just seeing the gratefulness of people makes my heart warm, even in a time and place where things are really cold."

They'll continue doing the work to help kids in North and West Tulsa, but if those temps drop again, they'll be ready to serve in whatever way they're needed.