Before the doors of the 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard building swing open at 7 p.m., people start lining up outside waiting with their belongings. Right on time, Heather Pack Aponte and Donna Carrington unlatch the entrance and begin welcoming people. This night, it is the thirteenth out of 14 consecutive days the shelter will be active and roughly two dozen people come by within the first half-hour.
For the last four years, whenever winter temperatures drop to freezing, the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness and other local government staff team up to provide an overnight shelter option to those who would be facing the cold unhoused. While people who do not use the service might envision the county government simply opening up a building, there is much more coordination, effort and care that go into running the program — and it provides the county an opportunity to better connect with community members facing homelessness.
Pack Aponte, who is the homeless programs coordinator with the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, funnels people to Carrington sitting at a desk. Carrington is one of several people in rotation who works as a temporary employee for the county overnight. She takes down their names and provides them with extra information about country resources if they are new to using the cold weather shelter.
“The one thing I always think about is the fact that people die in cold weather,” she says. “People die outside in long periods of exposure. And so, being able to have something like this when we can offer it, is extremely important to [the unhoused community.]”
Heather Pack Aponte (right) and Donna Carrington (center) check people into the cold weather shelter on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
After checking in, each person is handed a blanket and gets to pick out which cot assembled in neat rows along the first floor they would like to spend the night on. While they are asked to stash their bags underneath and follow the courtesy rules laid out by the county, the spot is often a much safer – and warmer – resting place than they might otherwise find.
“Here…I promise you, these people snore,” says Carrington. “Because they know that they are safe, they know that we care about them, and we’re not going to let anything happen [to them.]”
Over in the makeshift kitchen, a pair of volunteers from Chapel Hill’s University Baptist Church are portioning out vegetable soup, macaroni and cheese, and cake for shelter visitors to take back to their cots. As each person comes up, Joe Bray asks how they are and what they’d like to eat. Bray – a longtime UNC employee – helps out at the county shelter every week.
“It’s just such a good feeling to see these people come in,” he says. “They’re cold, they’re hungry, who knows what they’ve been doing all day…you at least give them a warm meal, and you know they’ve got a place to stay tonight. To know I’m going to go home to a nice warm meal and bed, and it just makes you appreciate how good you’ve got it.”
From right to left: Heather Pack Apointe, Mike Fox and Joe Bray prepare some of the food they will pass out to people who present at the shelter. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
What used to be the lobby and front office area of the Chapel Hill Police station is now emptied out and filled with cots for nighttime stays. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Bray was among the group who frequently volunteered at the shelter in 2024 when it was housed at University Baptist Church. While the downtown spot was a success in terms of attracting users and providing space, the church ran into capacity challenges and did not have ideal plumbing to deal with the nightly traffic it received to its Community Room. Orange County Partnership staff began to look for other options for this winter – and were eventually approached by Chapel Hill Police, who moved their department headquarters out of the 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard building for a new home off Millhouse Road.
When deciding whether to have the shelter available from November through March, Pack Aponte relies on the forecasts provided by Orange County Emergency Management to determine its schedule in three- and four-day intervals. From there, she begins reaching out to the Partnership’s extensive network of contributors.
“If it is 32 [degrees] or below, we will activate,” Pack Aponte says. “I will reach out to our cold weather cot staff and let them know that they will be on shift that night. I also send out an email to all of our partners letting them know, letting our church partners know that they’re going to be able to serve food that night.”
Blake Rosser, the director of housing for Orange County, says the shelter’s popularity in 2024 helped his department not only quantify the increased need for housing but also highlighted the increased urgency for other services. The cold weather shelter is limited in what it can offer, but he says ensuring people have a temporary space for their dignity and safety is a critical first step to meeting those needs. He adds that bringing on Pack Aponte this year as the sole coordinator for the shelter has helped streamline its overall operations.
“This is the first time in four years that we’ve had someone who is in a position where they are the person responsible for organizing this and doing it so well,” says Rosser. “One year ago, it was [Homeless Programs Manager Danielle DeCaprio] and I who were coordinating this and that left us very little time for anything else. The deputy county manager was very involved in [the planning] as well. Having Heather here to be able to do that for us is really helping not only the community, but our entire organization.”
A sign posted in the 828 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard shelter about the timeline, rules and expectations of people using the space. (Photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
While the system to run the county’s cold weather shelter is well-established, that doesn’t mean it isn’t without challenges. For now, volunteers are only using microwaves left over from when the police department moved out of the 828 MLK building – and are limited to how many can run at once without blowing the fuse. The county also had to shut down the Hillsborough shelter it added in a partnership with two churches this winter. While they weren’t seeing enough traffic to justify staying open, staff know the need is still there and say the lack of takers speaks more to people’s struggles traveling to and from that part of Orange County.
Still, Pack Aponte says the cooperation and collective willingness to operate the cold weather shelter reflect the community’s desire to protect its unhoused residents. And while there are many logistics to run the shelter and the nights can add up, she believes it is very rewarding work.
“It’s heartwarming that we can offer that service to people,” Pack Aponte says. “There are people who are extremely vulnerable. Being able to ask them if they would like a coordinated entry, if they’re interested in housing, getting them hooked up to services, letting them know that there are resources in our community that maybe they weren’t aware of… it’s been an honor to be a part of this. I know that sounds a little cliché, but it truly is to be able to serve and offer this resource to residents.”
After dinner in the shelter, Pack Aponte speaks with a pair of newcomers to get a sense of their story, and the volunteers clean up the food table. Carrington checks in on a few others before reminding the group of the schedule for the rest of the night: quiet time begins at 9:30 p.m., the doors lock at midnight, and breakfast will be served at 6 a.m. before the shelter ends at 7 a.m.
“I really want to make sure our people are treated as guests,” says Carrington. “And that’s the way I think of them: when they walk in that door, they are my guest for 12 hours and I’m going to treat them that way. It’s really important that we think of them that way. This is our care for them, in a way that they probably don’t get [through] any other way.”
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