With record heat beating down on the Bay Area this holiday weekend, advocates who work with homeless people are redoubling efforts to spread word about places that offer some escape from the heat.
“Have water, stay cool, go places like the library that are going to be open on the weekend,” advised Lucy Kasdin, deputy director of Alameda County’s Health Care for the Homeless Program.
The agency provides treatment in an 40-foot, air-conditioned van parked outside St. Vincent de Paul Community Center in Oakland every Friday, and in Berkeley, Hayward and San Leandro on other days.
Kasdin told anyone who visited Friday about local cooling centers and gave them a bottle of water.
Robert Dillon, who came to the clinic to get some dental work done, said he lives in his parked trailer on a street in Oakland and because its solar-powered, he cannot park in the shade.