In November 2024, we built a small, bus stop-style structure on a trailer in response to a series of heavy atmospheric rivers hitting the Bay Area. The structure—known as The Warming Hut—serves as a temporary refuge for people living outside who often endure windy, wet, and frigid nights. Maybe their tent collapsed, their van got towed, or a puddle formed around their sleeping bag. Maybe they had no shelter or warmth whatsoever.
We made The Warming Hut to serve the people most impacted by inclement weather. It offers them shelter from the rain, hot coffee, dry socks and clothes, a blanket, and a seat next to a toasty space heater.
It’s a fairly simple idea to offer shelter for those in need, and the project has struck a chord with people. First employed as an emergency measure, The Warming Hut has opened up space for more magical forms of warmth: those of camaraderie, friendship, and community.
Volunteers have come to engage, serve, build, and repair. They meet our unhoused community, talk, hang out for hours, get to know each other, crack jokes, and invite anyone off the sidewalk to come in for a free cup of coffee. People see The Warming Hut and recognize it as a community gathering space. It has been bringing people together, housed and not, and that is the real warmth.
We will be moving into 2026 with energy and passion for warmth! Stay tuned for more community build days, art fairs, encampment events, and the construction of Warming Hut V2!
Always for the people,
The Warming Hut Project
The Warming Hut Project is is a mobile, pop-up coffee trailer that travels between homeless encampments in the East Bay. To support the project in building a second, more spacious warming hut trailer with onboard coffee brewing capabilities, visit their donation page.