Three downtown churches have agreed to a partnership with the Lawrence Community Shelter to provide additional sleeping space for homeless people during cold weather.

First United Methodist Church, 946 Vt., Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vt., and The Salvation Army, 946 N.H., have each agreed to house up to 15 people a night when temperatures drop below freezing.

Shelter director Loring Henderson said the new partnership has been crucial because the shelter at 10th and Kentucky streets frequently has been attracting more than the 76 people it is licensed to sleep.

“The churches have been great to us,” Henderson said. “They really understand the need, but we also know that churches get called upon to help with all types of crises. They’re always among the first asked to help, so we’re really appreciative of how good they’ve been to us.”

Henderson said the new sleeping program began shortly before Christmas. Thus far, the largest overflow crowd the shelter has dealt with has been 15 people, meaning only one church at a time has been used. But Henderson said with cold weather in the forecast for much of January, the overflow crowd could grow to 45 people or more.

The shelter provides staff members who go to the church and stay with the homeless during the night. The homeless people eat their meals and shower at the homeless shelter and are at the churches only from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Church leaders said the program has worked well.

“So far, it has gone amazingly well,” said Peter Luckey, senior pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church.

Luckey said church members decided to allow the church to be used for the program because they believed they had a responsibility to serve people in need.

“We can’t just turn our back on people who are sleeping in the cold,” Luckey said. “We believe as a congregation we have a calling to be a place of hospitality in downtown.”

A recent change in city zoning law has made the new partnership possible. City commissioners in 2008 approved regulations that allow churches to house up to 15 people per night, as long as the housing use is of a temporary nature. The new regulations largely were approved for the Family Promise program, which uses churches to house homeless families, but the new regulations opened up the possibility for any church to serve as a temporary homeless shelter without going through any special city permit process.

Henderson said he has had other churches outside the downtown area express an interest in serving as temporary shelters. He said he may pursue creating partnerships with those churches if the need continues to grow.