People congregate in the day use area at The Lighthouse Navigation Center in Bend on Monday. The shelter adds 35 sleeping mats to the room on cold nights.   

Clear and crisp conditions persisting across Central Oregon have carried a biting cold and nighttime temperatures well into the teens, putting people without shelter at risk of potentially life-threatening hypothermia and frostbite.

Each winter in Central Oregon, cold snaps put extra pressure on shelter providers to accommodate a surge of people seeking to escape the elements. Recently, winter shelters have opened their doors while others have bumped up capacity.

Winter weather this January has not been as severe as it was in 2024, when heaping snow and temperatures near zero degrees pushed new emergency shelters to open at a pair of churches in Bend. In 2025, already-operating year-round shelters have handled the cold weather by quickly adding capacity, said Emily Horton, preparedness and engagement manager with Deschutes County.

“If regularly operating shelters can absorb the demand, it’s a much smoother process than opening up a whole new shelter,” Horton said.

Horton said the county works with shelter providers to coordinate increased services when the weather gets cold. According to the county’s recommendation, warming shelters should open when temperatures are forecasted to fall below 20 degrees, if temperatures fall below freezing and are accompanied by wind, rain or snow, or if more than a foot of snow accumulates on the ground.

Meanwhile, libraries and other public buildings function as warming shelters during the day. Cascades East Transit, the regional bus service, has published information about routes to access the daytime shelters.

Temperatures in Bend dropped to a low of 12 degrees early Monday morning, and have consistently sunk into the teens most nights in the past week.

Read more

Cold-weather demand for emergency shelter exacerbates already limited resources

Central Oregon’s largest shelter provider, Shepherd’s House Ministries, recently expanded the number of beds at its Lighthouse Navigation Center from 100 to 135. The navigation center has returned to its location on Second Street after temporarily operating in the old Blue Dog RV building on Franklin Avenue during a renovation.

Horton said the county tries to ensure every community has some kind of shelter option.

Shelters are open in Jefferson and Crook counties as well, including in Prineville, Madras and Warm Springs.

In Sisters, a cold weather shelter is in operation in an old church building west of downtown, where the nonprofit CORE, formerly the Sisters Cold Weather Shelter group, has a 10-year lease. The group’s proposal to purchase a permanent shelter location north of town sparked controversy, with the city council denying the proposal and then allowing a temporary shelter out of an old city building during last January’s cold snap.

Lou Blanchard, director of the nonprofit, said the emergency shelter is a small part of the resources the group provides for homeless people in Sisters. He said the shelter has opened three separate times this year for a total of six full days. It has the capacity to sleep 20 people, but four people at most have slept there on a given night, Blanchard said.

What’s more common is for people to eat a meal at the shelter and get survival items like propane before returning to their camps for the night.

“We’ve essentially outfitted individuals to survive,” he said.

An updated list of emergency shelters is available on Deschutes County’s extreme weather operations webpage. The Homeless Leadership Coalition maintains a list of emergency shelters available across Central Oregon.

Emergency shelters operating in Central Oregon

The Lighthouse Navigation Center, Bend

• Hours: 24 hours a day, seven days a week

• Address: 275 NE Second St.

• Phone: 541-318–0729

Council on Aging, Bend

• Hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

• Address: 1036 NE Fifth St.

• Phone: 541-678-5483

Shepherd’s House Redmond Center, Redmond

• Hours: 24 hours a day, seven days a week

• Address: 1350 S U.S. Highway 97

• Phone: 541-388-2096

Sisters Cold Weather Shelter, Sisters

• Hours: 5 p.m. to 10 a.m., weather dependent

• Address: 222 N Trinity Way

• Phone: 541-588-2332

The Door Church, La Pine

• Hours: Seven days a week, 5 p.m. to 7 a.m.

• Address: 16430 Third St.

• Phone: 541-550-3088

Redemption House Ministries Regeneration House, Prineville

• Hours: 4 p.m. to 8 a.m.

• Address: 970 NW U.S. Highway 26

• Phone: 541-362-5642

• Men only

Redemption House Ministries Redemption House, Prineville

• Hours: 24 hours a day, seven days a week

• Address: 780 E First St.

• Phone: 541-362-5642

• Women and children only

Madras Winter Shelter, Madras

• Hours: 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., seven days a week

• Address: 61 NW Oak St.

• Website: www.jcfbn.org

Warm Springs shelter

• Hours: Nightly check in before 10 a.m.

• Address: Warm Springs reservation behind behavioral health center

• Phone: 541-615-0038