Fresno’s emergency rooms will suffer if warming centers don’t stay open longer, doctor warns

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Supporters of Fresno’s unhoused population warn that emergency rooms will suffer if the city does not keep warming centers open for longer.

According to Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, the city has gone to great lengths to accommodate Fresno’s unhoused when warming centers are needed.

“When we have the warming centers open, all the bus lines are open for free,” Arias said. “We allow them to bring their pets on the buses and bring their belongings on the buses.”

On Monday, advocates met outside of the Ted C. Wells Community Center to share their concerns about the city’s current policy of only opening up warming centers once the temperature drops below 35 degrees. Among them was Dr. Farah Karipineni, who says the city’s current threshold for opening the warming centers has serious problems.

“If you’re outside and it’s 36 to 40 degrees – it’s cold,” Karipineni said. “Higher temperatures can feel very cold and you can actually get hypothermia and frostbite when you’re wet.”

Karipineni says the city needs to consider rain too, instead of simply the 35-degree threshold, if they want to avoid unhoused deaths and overcrowding in Fresno’s hospitals as the unhoused go there to get treatment.

“We are facing unprecedented volume in our hospitals and that impacts everyone,” Karipineni said. “Wait times in the emergency room are astronomical.”

Advocates say the best way to avoid further issues is for the city to keep warming centers open all winter, but Arias says it’s not that simple.

“The consequence of expanding warming centers is terminating or pausing youth programs or the programs for the elderly who depend on them,” Arias said. “The last time that we opened up warming centers for people at that temperature we only had about four to five people per warming center.”

Arias also says he noticed that none of the neighbors were present to speak alongside advocates. He says neighbors have to be notified because when warming centers are opened, neighbors see an increase in break-ins.

“It’s not the people in the warming center that are causing the crime,” Arias said. “It’s the people that come around the warming centers because the elderly and the homeless are here.”

Despite his reservations, Arias says that based on the advocacy he heard, he believes there’s an opportunity for collaboration between the city and advocates if the advocates are willing to help recruit the unhoused to the city’s warming centers.

YourCentralValley.com has reached out to the City of Fresno for a statement in response.