Aneurin Canham-Clyne Photo
Isaiah Fredericks staying warm Tuesday at the library.
As another night of sub-freezing temperatures loomed Tuesday afternoon, the city worked on shepherding homeless people to warm shelters. But Isaiah Fredericks and several of his friends planned to spend another night walking the streets.
“Even though it’s bad, I like the cold more than heat, because when I’m cold I can easily warm myself up,” Fredericks said while warming up during the afternoon at the main public library branch on Elm Street. He said he actually prefers winter to summer. Still, he noted the inconvenience of having to wear as many as eight layers of clothing.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Tuesday extended through next Monday a “severe cold weather protocol” for dangerously low temperatures.
City officials have followed suit, arranging for homeless shelters to open longer hours and provide a “warming center” for people not looking to seek formal beds during standard hours. Police have been instructed at line-up to approach people wandering the streets at night to encourage them to go to the shelters. And on Wednesday night the city has arranged to have an additional warming center — with places to sit and stay warm — open at New Lighthouse Ministries church at 261 Columbus Ave., said emergency operations chief Rick Fontana. Fontana said shelters have been operating at full capacity in recent days. A second warming shelter, with a capacity for 50 people, will open at a church on Grand Avenue on Feb. 1, Fontana said.
But as the temperature hit 3 degrees on Monday night, Fredericks and several of his friends opted to walk around downtown rather than go to one of the warming facilities. Fredericks, who said he has been homeless for six months, said he did spend part of the night at Union Station.
Fredericks spends most his winter days at the New Haven Free Public Library, which acts as a warming center for the city’s homeless.
Fredericks said he has been using his time at the library to prepare for the spring semester when he hopes to study retail management and fashion merchandising at Gateway. He has been trying to find work after spending several months without a job, he said. Fredericks said he finds it very difficult to find employment, particularly when he spends most of his day just trying to keep warm.
Terry (declined to give her last name), who was hanging out with Fredericks at the library, said the cold had become unbearable over the last week, as temperatures hovered in the teens and single digits. Terry said that she has been an activist in the homeless community; she said she does not have reliable access to city services.
“If anyone did enough, you wouldn’t be here asking for my story,” Terry noted. Terry, Fredericks, and two other homeless people at the library said they spent New Year’s Eve in Union Station but out on the streets since then.
Shauntasia Hicks, a librarian at the main branch, said the library acts as a refuge for people during the day. This degree of cold, Hicks noted, drove more people than usual into the library Tuesday.
“People come in at 10 and stay until 8,” Hicks said. Hicks said a lot of people stay in the library until closing before heading to local cafes. Hicks added that even shops that remain open late, like Blue State Coffee, close around midnight, meaning people can go without shelter for the coldest hours of the day.
In addition to providing a warm space, the library has been coordinating a sock drive and other efforts to help homeless people stay warm even when they have nowhere to go.
“We’re in desperate times, so we all need to be more accommodating and compassionate,” Hicks said.
Isaiah Fredericks echoed the sentiment, saying that businesses often hassle homeless people. He said he is not looking forward to the weekend — temperatures are expected to dip below zero on Saturday night.