(Radio Iowa) – With sub-zero temperatures and wind chills, shelters have been doing more to reach out to the homeless this week. Candace Gregory with Omaha’s Open Door Mission says they started reaching out to people in homeless encampments and abandoned buildings on both sides of the Missouri River at the end of last week. “Trying to educate people, ‘Hey, it’s coming, it’s going to be cold for numerous days, this is a time to come in.’ Even though we give out resources and things like that. We have people who still choose to be outside, so our clinic has been dealing with a lot of frostbite this week,” she says. Gregory says the Mission’s outreach center in Council Bluffs handed out hundreds of blankets, hats, mittens, and coats to people in need.

Gregory says the organization spent the past several days searching through homeless encampments and abandoned buildings. “Our neediest neighbors really need us this week and we just need to work together to keep everyone safe,” Gregory says. Gregory says even though their shelters are already overflowing, no one gets turned away.

Gregory says there’s an estimated 16-hundred homeless people in the Omaha metro area, including Council Bluffs and western Iowa. However, she says that the number is likely much higher because an annual count required by HUD is done during the winter, not summer months.