Temperatures are dropping, as they tend to do this time of year. Many see that as a welcome sign that Christmas is near. Imagine, however, the pain of having to sleep outside in the cold.
Many Salt Lake-area families face that option. Frigid weather means an overflow of people at the Salt Lake Community Shelter and Resource Center.Fortunately, homeless advocates have worked a deal with the Salt Lake School District allowing people to spend the night in the Salt Lake Community High School cafeteria. Unfortunately, the deal conflicts with city zoning laws, which don't allow homeless shelters in the high school.
The city ought to find a way to grant an exception in this case.
Overcrowding is a constant winter-time concern for homeless advocates. This has been a mild winter, yet the shelter has averaged six families over capacity each night. Last Sunday, 11 families, amounting to 16 adults and 25 children, had to sleep in the shelter's lobby.
Homeless single men pose a bigger problem. Already this winter, the shelter has had one night with 100 homeless men seeking cover. If the school were used to house families on busy nights, the extra men would sleep in the dining rooms at St. Vincent De Paul and the Salvation Army.
Not long ago, Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini and shelter director Maun Alston made a public plea for a place to house the homeless on particularly frosty nights. Their ideal location would have been an empty warehouse, but so far they haven't been able to find one.
In the strictest sense, the high school could not be used as a temporary shelter without violating zoning laws. The school is not zoned for commercial general use, which is the zoning designation that allows for shelters.
But the school would not be used as a permanent full-time shelter. Officials estimate they would need to use it about six times this winter. Regardless of their reasons for being homeless, no one deserves to suffer exposure to potentially deadly elements.
Because the school and the shelter already have come to terms, the city should find a way to grant a variance or some other form of temporary executive exemption to zoning laws.
No one should freeze because of a legal technicality.