Homeless families may soon find shelter from the storm at a local church, thanks to an emergency ordinance approved late Tuesday night by the Murrieta City Council.Single people without homes will have to search for their own form of shelter, however, because the ordinance only allows the churches to house families with children.

After a four-hour discussion on the topic, the Murrieta City Council unanimously agreed to allow churches that meet several regulations to serve as temporary emergency shelters for families.

Council members approved the emergency shelter ordinance just before midnight Tuesday. Wednesday morning, homeless shelter supporters were calling on as many local churches as they could reach to ask for commitments to help a Murrieta church, which has been housing a small group of homeless people for two weeks, meet the new standards.

“We’re where the rubber meets the road,” said Anne Unmacht, president of Project Together Our Unity Conquers Homelessness, a nonprofit organization that helped open the emergency shelter at Grace of Temecula Church in response to January storms that drenched the region. “We’ve been doing this on an unofficial basis, but now we’re going to a whole different level.”

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