By William A. Weathers and Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Tim Mills, 42, seeks refuge from the cold Thursday afternoon at the Drop-Inn Center Shelter House in Over-the-Rhine. (Glenn Hartong photos) | ZOOM |

Bitter cold Thursday made every fire a potential disaster and left homeless shelters crowded.

A five-alarm fire in a Mount Healthy apartment building displaced four families Thursday night, and the cold meant extra units were needed to battle it. There were no injuries.

Mount Healthy Fire Chief Tom Harris said extra units responded from North College Hill, Springfield Township, Colerain Township and Greenhills because in cold weather firefighters have to rotate frequently.

No cause had been determined Thursday night, and a damage estimate had not been set.

The fire at 7839 Clovernook Drive damaged four of eight units.

With the temperature in single digits, more than 40 firefighters were on hand.

"The toughest part with the cold weather is trying to keep your hands and feet warm," said Springfield Township Chief Robert W. Leininger.

A Mount Healthy firefighter drags a hoseline around the back of a burning building in the Compton Groves Apartments Thursday. Four families were displaced. | ZOOM |

Chief Harris said residents in four of the eight units should be able to return either overnight or today.

Elsewhere in the Tristate, homeless people were faced with life and death choices as the mercury dropped to 4 degrees.

"You can die out on those streets,'' said Tim Mills, a 42-year-old homeless man huddled in the waiting room of the Drop-Inn Center Shelter House in Over-the-Rhine Thursday afternoon with about 100 other men.

Tristate shelters have been bursting at the seams all week with those seeking shelter from the coldest weather of the season.

Many homeless people are men like 40-year-old Montear Stone, who works odd jobs and often ends up spending the night on a cot at the West 12th Street shelter.

"It's better than spending the night on the streets," Mr. Stone said, rubbing his hands together as he waited for the Drop-Inn Center's sleeping area to open. "In the summer, you can sleep under a bridge or something, but not in weather like this. But some people will do it. They may be dead in the morning, but they'll do it."

Shelters cannot turn people away.

"That would simply be murder in this kind of weather," said Georgine Getty, director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.

The Drop-Inn Center is the largest shelter in the region and one of the few that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is built to hold up to 250 people.

This week, though, it has up to 285 people at any time of day or night, said Pat Clifford, general coordinator.

"People show up and we just move things around and squeeze them in every available space," Mr. Clifford said.

In Northern Kentucky, men, women and children with nowhere else to go have been filling up the 33 beds at the Elohim Christian Center's severe weather shelter on Maryland Avenue in Covington since it opened for the first time two weeks ago.

"There has not been a night we have not been completely full," said the Rev. Joseph Andino, Elohim pastor.

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com