Douglas County and the City of Lawrence are developing a plan to provide emergency shelter during cold weather this winter, and they’ll be holding a meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss it with agencies, volunteers and the public.

A news release Wednesday from the City of Lawrence said the meeting would be at 1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds’ Flory Meeting Hall, 2120 Harper St. It said the meeting would be open to the public and would “bring together local volunteers, agencies, and community members who are deeply engaged in emergency shelter work.”

The release said the emergency shelter plan would involve sites that are “designed to serve up to 40 individuals” and would “be available to all genders, with special accommodations made for families in need.” It did not provide any dates or locations in which these shelters would operate.

The release also listed several agencies and departments involved in the creation of the plan: Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, the city’s Homeless Initiatives Division, Douglas County Emergency Management, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical and the Lawrence Community Shelter.

In the winters of 2021-22 and 2022-23, the city operated a winter emergency shelter in the Community Building, 115 W. 11th St., generally from the beginning of December to early March. For part of last winter, the city did not operate an emergency shelter itself. However, when a stretch of bitterly cold temperatures arrived in January of this year, the city opened the Santa Fe depot at Seventh and New Jersey streets as a 24-hour winter shelter, and it arranged another winter shelter at the University Community of Christ near the University of Kansas campus a few days later.