A man died in the city of Ithaca after sleeping outside in freezing conditions, earlier this month. Some outreach workers who work with the area’s homeless population say they can protect others in his position.
Family members identified the man as Roland Hoyt, a Tompkins County resident who was homeless, according to reporting by the Ithaca Voice. Hoyt was found just a block away from the county’s Code Blue winter shelter, located in Downtown Ithaca.
Deb Wilke is a board member at Second Wind Cottages, a nonprofit that provides permanent supportive housing for the homeless. She also does outreach work in the community.
Wilke said that getting people who would otherwise be sleeping outside into shelter can be a matter of survival during winter months. One option is the Code Blue shelter located at 300 North Tioga Street.
“I would encourage people, anyone who could, to try to do that,” Wilke said.
Code Blue is a state-mandated program that requires counties to provide a warm place to stay on nights when the temperature drops below freezing.
However, Wilke knows that the county’s Code Blue shelter isn’t ideal, calling it more of a warming center.
“There's no showers, there's no laundry, there's no kitchen, there's no case management taking place at that warming center site, that Code Blue site. So the real solutions to getting someone out of their homeless status aren't going to be accessed in that setting,” Wilke said.
There are also many reasons why the shelter might not be an option for some people. She said some have mental health conditions that could prevent them from successfully passing through security and completing intake. Others might have complicated or even abusive relationships with people who are staying at the facility.
Regardless of the reason, Wilke said there are other options. Outreach workers like her can help keep people safe in freezing temperatures.
“Let us try to help you to survive,” she said.
Wilke said she has distributed cold weather gear to keep people safer when they are outside.
She added that advocates can help people access resources through the Department of Social Services and get people on the path to temporary or permanent housing.
Wilke said there needs to be better communication between outreach services, emergency services, and the public when someone is sleeping outside. She also wants to see more outreach availability on nights and weekends.
She encouraged people who are sleeping outside or know someone in those circumstances to call Second Wind or other organizations that do outreach, like REACH Medical and the Salvation Army.
‘Army of outreach workers’
Richard Rivera is another area advocate who works with the Center for Community Alternatives.
According to Rivera, many of the people who are homeless in Ithaca are dealing with trauma, abuse, substance use, mental health issues, and complicated interpersonal histories that can make accessing the systems set up to help them essentially impossible. However, Rivera said that outreach workers are in a position to help them navigate those systems while keeping their individual circumstances in mind.
He encouraged the county to utilize an “army of outreach workers” from community organizations.
“Provide relationship based service,” Rivera said. “Service that centers the humanity of these individuals, instead of their smells and the stigmas that we ascribe on their bodies.”
He said supporting those outreach workers means properly funding the organizations that employ them. Rivera added that he would like to see more permanent, supportive housing in Ithaca that can provide around-the-clock services for traumatized populations.
