Wednesday, January 6, 1999
Most homeless find shelter from cold
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Homeless military veteran Terry Pinkard spent Monday night and Tuesday morning walking the streets of Covington and Cincinnati.
By 7 o'clock Tuesday morning, when the temperature was 6 below zero, he huddled on a downtown heating grate with another homeless man.
“I ain't got nowhere else to go,” Mr. Pinkard said later Tuesday morning. He stood on the grate near Tower Place Mall on Fourth Street in Cincinnati and drank hot coffee.
He is in the minority. Fewer than 1 percent of the Tristate's estimated 1,300 homeless people are on the streets during severe weather, local homeless advocates say.
Several safety nets exist for homeless people when temperatures plunge, and almost all use them.
“Those who are out on nights like that may have se vere mental issues, or they simply don't know where to go for help,” said Donald Whitehead, director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless, an umbrella organization of 70 groups that deal with homeless people.
Mr. Whitehead, himself formerly homeless, is part of one safety net. On Monday night, he drove the streets of Over-the-Rhine and downtown looking for people who needed shelter.
“Even most of the diehard homeless will go in on bad nights,” he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs and Tender Mercies, an Over-the-Rhine agency that provides permanent housing for people who are homeless and mentally ill, each have programs designed to help homeless veterans and the mentally ill who are homeless.
Workers from both organizations make regular rounds year-round looking for homeless people who might benefit from their services.
Chris Engle is Outreach Services coordinator for Tender Mercies. During severe weather, he will try to get homeless people immediate shelter and find them permanent housing through the agency.
Some homeless people agree to short-term help. Mr. Engle has driven them to the Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) department at University Hospital. Other times, he has called the department's Mobile Crisis Team for help.
Cincinnati police officers also can put a hold on a homeless person who needs emergency treatment and take the person to PES, police division spokesman Lt. Roger Wolf said.
The Cincinnati Health Department also operates an emergency shelter when the wind chill drops below zero and other shelters are nearly full.
The area's largest shelter, the Drop Inn Center Shelter House, 217 W. 12th St. in Over-the-Rhine, has had more than 220 people spend each of the past three nights there.
The health department opened its emergency shelter in the Over-the-Rhine Community Center, 1715 Republic St., on those nights, and 57, 63 and 38 people took lodging there.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning, Mr. Pinkard and another homeless man, Rick Doggett, were sipping hot soup and coffee given to them by passersby.
Mr. Doggett, 41, said he didn't know where he was going to go.
But Mr. Pinkard, 39, wearing sneakers, jeans and a short jacket, wanted to get bus fare for the ride to the VA Medical Center in Corryville.
He had walked there Monday and received a prescription for seizures and had his photograph taken for a new veteran's benefits card. It was too far to walk again, he said, and he hoped to see a caseworker who could give him money to buy a bus ticket. He planned to ride to Indianapolis to stay with his brother, who has a house.
Mr. Pinkard wanted nothing to do with a shelter.
“You think those places are there to help you,” he said. “They're not. Put on some homeless clothes and walk in and see if they help you. They treat you any way they want.”
Enquirer reporter Tim Bonfield contributed to this report.
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