Here comes the cold. So where go the homeless?

For a "lucky" 30 or 35, St. Vincent de Paul will again provide an overnight warming center in downtown Coeur d'Alene on nights the forecast calls for temperatures falling to 25 degrees or lower.

But for dozens more, last year's option - a warming center at 202 W. Seventh St. in Post Falls - isn't going to be available because of a funding shortage.

"We either need to raise the extra money or have someone else step up and provide that life-saving service," St. Vincent de Paul Executive Director Jeff Conroy said Monday.

Conroy explained that keeping each warming center open from Nov. 1 through March 1 - an estimated 75 nights each winter - costs about $20,000 per warming center. In addition to utilities and other basics, his organization pays a man and a woman $100 each for working a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at each center. Staffing is supplemented by volunteers.

The warming center St. Vincent has operated at Fresh Start on east Sherman Avenue is set, Conroy said, but there is a dire need for a center in Post Falls to handle 40 or so homeless people each night when the temperature plummets.

"The community has been extremely supportive in so many ways, particularly with meals," Conroy said. He said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Post Falls provided meals last winter, and a local resident got help from Pizza Hut in donating dozens of pizzas.

But at the moment, there's no Post Falls roof waiting to protect the homeless - 68 percent of whom are North Idahoans and not passers-through, Conroy said.

"Last year, between the two centers, we were able to help 70 to 80 people a night," he said. "This year we have the capacity for half that. What do we do? How do we pick and choose who gets to stay warm?"

St. Vincent de Paul is calling for urgently needed donations to raise the $20,000 for a Post Falls warming center, or asking that another nonprofit step forward and provide that service. To donate or for more information, call Matt Hutchinson at St. Vincent de Paul, (208) 664-3095.