Community organizers and housing advocates held a vigil in Binghamton Saturday, remembering people who died this year while experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.
The group gathered in downtown Binghamton, handing out hot food, warm clothes, and harm reduction supplies like fentanyl test strips and the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
Terri Weathers, one of the organizers, said she sees more and more people living without housing. She said many of these people were priced out of their homes and evicted.
“I've heard multiple stories of people that have said that they were paying like $650 for a place,” Weathers said. “[Landlords] clear them out to renovate, and then it either becomes student housing, or it is $900 for the same place and all they did was put a coat of paint and some fresh siding.”
With daily temperatures below freezing, code-blue conditions are in effect in Binghamton and most of the surrounding region. Code Blue is a state mandate that requires local governments to provide shelter to unhoused residents when the temperature drops below freezing.
Emergency shelter is available at the UpComfort warming center in downtown Binghamton, YWCA, YMCA, and Volunteers of America on the city’s North Side.
Weathers said conditions for people living outside are worse than she’s seen in previous years. She said many emergency shelters have restrictive rules, which discourages some people from accessing them.
“I think in order to make this less horrible, there should be, in the city of Binghamton, an eviction moratorium from October to May,” Weathers said. “The same time that the landlords are supposed to have the heat on inside of these buildings, they can't put people outside to die in the winter.”
The gathering Saturday was in part meant to honor and remember residents who have died while living on the street or in shelters in the past year. A man in Ithaca died earlier this month after sleeping outside in freezing conditions.
Weathers spoke to the crowd about a man named Vern, who she and other outreach volunteers had known for years. She remembers him as crotchety and resourceful, with a “wicked sense of humor.”
“He kind of reminded me of one of my uncles. He was sort of grumbly. But he could fix, like, anything,” Weathers said. “He was a contractor and so he had knowledge, that is how he survived. He set up some pretty ingenious living conditions that did not involve tents.”
Weathers said Vern was exposed to frostbite over and over while living outside. Finally, after a particularly bad cold snap, organizers put him up in a hotel and convinced him to go to the hospital for treatment for his wounds.
“They amputated up to the knee. Both legs. He was then later discharged back to the street, stayed with a friend for a little while, bounced around, was back on the street last we knew,” Weathers said. “And he is just another case of one of those people that disappeared.”
Weathers said the organizers finally heard from Vern’s sister that he had died over the summer. The group held a moment of silence for Vern, and other friends and community members who died this year.