Code Blue: Bucks County nonprofits prepare to shelter homeless community from cold

As the Advocates for the Homeless of Upper Bucks prepared to host its first shelter night of the Code Blue season, they shared a weather update on Facebook.

“Our temperatures (will) turn cooler and windier with our low temps Friday right on the 26-degree Code Blue threshold,” the Nov. 17 post read. Two days prior, the nonprofit kicked off its ninth year of sheltering Quakertown’s homeless community from the brutal cold. The season will now run through April 15.

It’s the time of year when, as the temperatures hit 26 degrees Fahrenheit or below, including wind chill, the group and two other designated Code Blue shelters in Central and Lower Bucks prepare to open their doors to those needing a place to stay.

A chance of excessive precipitation, like sleet, rain or snow, is also a factor.

AHUB hosted a total of seven people at the Quakertown Masonic Lodge during its first two Code Blue nights of the season. The organization sees an average of 30 to 50 people coming in each year, according to its chairman, Pastor Dave Heckler.

For those left out in the cold as the mercury drops, the bone-chilling temperatures could make a life-and-death difference.

“We ourselves had seen folks in the dead of winter walking from Quakertown, downward 309, to Souderton to (take a bus) to Lansdale, where Trinity Lutheran Church was operating a Code Blue shelter,” Heckler recalled about their initial decision to open their own shelter.

“As a ministerium, we were like, ‘we wouldn’t walk 309 at high noon in the middle of the summer, much less at night in the dead of winter seeking shelter,’” he said. “‘We've got to do something.’”

And without these three shelters operating during late fall, winter and early spring, Bucks County’s most vulnerable are left with limited options.

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“The emergency shelter is full with many months of people on the waitlist, so there'd be no place for them to go,” said Karen Mineo, managing consultant for Lower Bucks-based Advocates for Homeless and Those in Need, of the year-round Bucks County Emergency Shelter in Bristol Township.

The Advocates for Homeless Code Blue season, which the nonprofit has participated in for 13 years, begins Dec. 3 and runs through late March. AHTN serves people living in Bristol, Bensalem, Fairless Hills, Levittown Morrisville, Penndel, Yardley and Newtown.

If the group is able to get at least 18 volunteers, it can open up a Code Blue shelter for the night.

AHTN will set up shop in Yardley’s Woodside Church for two months starting next week with COVID-19 precautions still in effect when they host their guests. The shelter relocates to Calvary Baptist Church in Bristol for February and March.

Outside of operating the shelters, volunteer drivers pick up members of the homeless community at four designated bus stops near known outside encampments, Mineo said.

“When we're down in Calvary, it's easier for our homeless friends to walk because there are two large encampments in Bristol, so last year, we didn't really need to do a lot of transportation because they were so close to the shelter,” she said.

“This year, being in Yardley for two months, it's going to be a little challenging, but our AHTN drivers rise to the occasion, and we'll make it work.”

The Coalition to Shelter and Support the Homeless, a nonprofit that serves Central Bucks, starts its Code Blue season on Dec. 1, and it runs through March.

Each month, CSSH will move its Code Blue shelter to a different church — Neshaminy Warwick Presbyterian Church next month, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in January, Doylestown Presbyterian Church in February and St. Paul's Lutheran Church for March.

With many people arriving with little more than a backpack, the nonprofit provides them clothes like thermal underwear, sweatpants and sweatshirts and boots.

“They come in with nothing,” said Mae O’Brien, CSSH’s executive director. “They threw everything out from the year before because they can't store it.”

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Like the Code Blue shelters in Upper and Lower Bucks, CSSH, which needs 14 people to run a shelter each night, will have food and a warm place to sleep overnight for those in need.

“Two of the facilities, and Doylestown Presbyterian is one of them, have showers so people can have a shower, and we also provide breakfast and a bag lunch for people to take as they leave,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien, who recently joined the organization, says COVID-19 remains a concern as they prepare to open their doors.

They’ll be arranging beds so people can sleep head to toe with six feet of distance in between to minimize people breathing on each other, she said.

“Everyone has PPE and everyone in the shelter, except when they're eating and including volunteers, must wear a mask,” she said. “It's very important to us that the people who stay at the shelter and our volunteers are safe, and we bend over backwards to make sure that everything is as clean as it should be.”

On top of continued COVID protocols, there’s the possibility of a particularly cold winter ahead.

Reflecting on past seasons, Heckler said his ministry will be prepared as they brace themselves. Some previous months, he said, have been “just brutal.”

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“Last February, we were open 22 out of 28 nights in February, and back in 2017-2018, we were open 98 nights over the season out of 152,” Heckler said. “By the end of that season, we were all just exhausted, just totally exhausted.”

The pastor says if it does turn out to be an exceptionally chilly few months, the warm and consistent space at the Masonic Lodge, along with a dedicated group of volunteers, will help them make it work.

“Certainly, if this is going to be an extraordinarily cold season, we could use more volunteers,” he said.

To meet AHTN’s need for volunteers this season, it’s hosting an in-person orientation at Woodside Church Dec. 5 in hopes of recruiting new helpers.

Mineo says last year, when the vaccine wasn’t yet available, they had a tough time keeping volunteers because many are older and had underlying health concerns.

“It’s tough, (but) we've never had to not open because we didn't have enough volunteers, I think that's happened once in the last six years that I've been here,” Mineo said.

“If it's colder and we're open more, we’ll just keep on working with our volunteers, try to recruit new volunteers and hope that we can open,” she said.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County nonprofits prepare for Code Blue season as temperatures drop