Allegheny County’s Homeless Advisory Board is calling on Pittsburgh and the county to establish clear criteria for opening their joint extreme weather shelter.

Board members said during a meeting Tuesday that they were upset there appeared to be no plan to immediately open the shelter, despite the recent frigid temperatures.

The board voted to recommend that the facility be opened whenever the temperature drops below 32 degrees.

The recommendation is nonbinding, but it does send a signal to city and county leadership that the board wants the emergency facility to be opened immediately.

“With temperatures expected in the 20s today and tomorrow and the wind chill down to the mid-teens, this is an extremely urgent issue of public safety for some of the city and county’s most vulnerable residents,” the board wrote in an email to Erin Dalton, director of the county’s Department of Human Services, and Lisa Frank, chief operating and administrative officer for Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey.

The Department of Human Services is partnering with Pittsburgh on a plan to open an emergency facility when the county’s overflow beds reach maximum capacity or if another shelter has facility problems such as a pipe breaking or heating loss.

The Department of Human Services did not immediately return a request for comment.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the county told the advisory board there was no plan to open overnight shelter capacity Tuesday evening, despite lows in the 20s.

Andy Halfhill, of the county’s Department of Human Services, said that the county was working on adding emergency overflow beds in the coming weeks and hoped to add at least 15 to 20. He did not specify where the extra beds would be or when they would be ready.

He said the winter shelter at Smithfield United Church of Christ will not reopen this year. It has been closed since June.

The county has 457 shelter beds, including 377 permanent ones and 80 overflow beds. Halfhill said the county’s shelter beds are close to full, which is generally the case.

A graph presented at the meeting showed the county’s sheltered homeless population has been hovering around 400 since July. The county has identified about 200 people who are homeless and unsheltered. The homeless population living in tents has been steadily increasing since June and currently sits at just over 100.

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