Kitsap County’s Severe Weather Shelter will open at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, offering a warm place for homeless individuals to spend the night.

The county’s department of emergency management made the announcement early Tuesday in anticipation of the temperatures dipping below freezing overnight.

“Technically, we don’t open until 6 p.m.,” said Patti Peterson, executive Director of Bremerton Foodline. “But if it’s cold or wet, we’ll let folks in just as soon as we can.”

Bremerton Foodline, at 1600 12th St., doubles at the only Severe Weather Shelter in the area when needed. So once the food bank closes, things inside have to be shuffled around in order to make the rooms ready for overnight visitors, Peterson said. Sometimes that can take up to an hour, and that’s why the shelter doesn’t officially open until 6 p.m. Guests will not be able to check into the shelter after 10 p.m.

The shelter opens when temperatures are expected to be 32 degrees or below for one or more nights, if snow accumulations are one inch or more for two days and if there are two or more successive days with one inch or more rainfall anticipated.

The forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday nights calls for the temperature to fall to 32 degrees or below, and there may be spotty snow in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The overnight shelter at Bremerton Foodline is for men, women and children, and families. There are blankets, sleeping bags, mats and some cots, snacks and television. A separate room is used for the families who stay over, while individuals sleep in the lobby and hallway of the food bank. If there is an overflow crowd, volunteers who man the shelter open the food bank warehouse.

Peterson and some other food bank staff double as volunteers at the overnight shelter along with some emergency management employees. Visitors have to be up at 6 a.m. and out the door by 7 a.m. so that the food bank can be re-assembled for its daytime work. Most of the overnighters then go to the Salvation Army for breakfast.

There is limited accommodations, but visitors can wash up in the bathrooms and are given warm socks, underwear and gloves, scarves and hats. If they don’t have coats, some are available for homeless visitors.

“It’s a safe, warm place,” said Peterson. “And there’s some food because when it’s cold the body needs more fuel.”

Last winter, the shelter opened 27 separate nights, and housed a total of 326 clients. Volunteers gave 972 hours to keep it open.

Peterson said more volunteers are needed to help keep the shelter open. Eventually, when the Kitsap Rescue Mission completes its expansion, a permanent overnight shelter will be located there and will use the housing model that is used at the food bank.

“Until that happens, we’ll open here,” Peterson said. “There’s a need and we can’t just walk away, especially when it’s so cold and people would freeze outside.”

Peterson said the shelter always needs men’s and women’s socks, underwear and gloves. Blankets, sleeping bags, and tents also are needed.”I’ve given out five tents since September,” she said. “Tents and sleeping bags get a lot of wear because it’s damp and often folks don’t have ground cloths to lay down to keep them dry. So they mold and the clients don’t have anywhere to wash them. So they need replacing.”

To help out, go to www.Bremertonfoodline.org. or call 360-479-6188.

For those who may need shelter, Peterson said the best way to find out if the shelter is open is to read the reader boards on the front of Kitsap Transit buses.

“They always run our message,” she said. “That means a lot. People know to look at the buses.”

The shelter serves anyone in the county who needs safe overnight refuge where none is available. Further activations will be weather dependent.For more information about the process, call 211 or call Kitsap Community Resources at 360-478-2301.