Cooling center might protect homeless from criminals preying on them

The Calexico Brown Bag Coalition said cooling centers would separate the vulnerable homeless from criminals among them.

Maribel Padilla, CBBC Co-founder, said, “I’m trying to get retired law enforcement to come out and help which know how to treat people, and they know how to spot one that is really not supposed to be there.”

She said some homeless are victims of criminals preying on them.

“The homeless themselves know who the bad people are, and they’ll tell us, hey, he’s the guy who robbed me or something like that,” Padilla said.

City Mayor Bill Hodge said the coalition and city are working closely together on opening a cooling center.

“This is the first time that the city is taking a serious effort to mitigate or eradicate the problems of the homeless,” Hodge said.

A cooling center is proposed on west 2 nd Street at the old Rosa’s Plane Food restaurant, at the airport and across from the Gran Plaza Outlets. It would be open during the day and closed at night.

“As long as we can control the parameters and the situation, they would be inside that facility,” Hodge said.

He admits some homeless might not like the idea.

“A conditioning and shaping of a particular segment of the homeless that refuse to abide by rules in the shelters and go to the parks because they have the addiction,” Hodge said.

However, the cooling center might not be ready before summer ends.

” It takes time. It takes effort. There’s a lot of logistics involved, but we’re working on it, ” Hodge said.

Padilla said there’s no turning away from the problem.

“Because the homeless population is building up in their backyard, behind city hall, there’s no looking the other way,” Padilla said.

The Coalition is putting together a list of possible volunteers to run the cooling center once it opens. Anyone interested in helping can contact them at their Facebook page Brown Bag Coalition.

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