Groups to help homeless as storm nears
A men’s shelter near Lewes and a cluster of small residences in Georgetown, which both serve the homeless, made room for more people a year ago after a foot of snow fell in Sussex County.
With wildly variable forecasts for a storm that could bring heavy snow to the area this weekend, the community’s safety net for the homeless was getting prepared Jan. 21.
“We'll have to see what happens this weekend,” said Mike Agnew, Code Purple at the Cape site director. “We’re not going to leave people in the snow.”
Code Purple operates two 14-person overnight winter homeless shelters, one for men at St. Jude the Apostle Church near Lewes and one for women at Lutheran Church of Our Savior near Rehoboth Beach.
In addition to the formerly homeless residents of the 40 small residences of Pallet Village in Georgetown, about 250 homeless people live in and around town, many of them in three encampments in the woods.
These are among several encampments in Sussex County. People who live there are at increased risk during strong winter storms that collapse their tents.
Groups that help the homeless are asking the state for additional funds for temporary housing if a predicted heavy snowfall hits this weekend.
“We need to find money from the state to put people up in hotel rooms,” said Judson Malone, executive director of Springboard Delaware, which operates Pallet Village in Georgetown.
Malone said Pallet Village’s 40 small residential units are already occupied.
Georgetown Town Manager Gene Dvornick said the town has no homeless shelter and area nonprofit organizations will assist unsheltered people.
Agnew said he is concerned that the timing of the storm, which may last into Monday, Jan. 26, could complicate the Point-in-Time Count, scheduled the night of Wednesday, Jan. 28, into the morning of Thursday, Jan. 29.
The nationwide effort, coordinated every other year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with the support of local groups, counts homeless people, including those in temporary shelters, during in-person searches.
Heavy snow and ice make it difficult for volunteers to reach wooded encampments to conduct the count, and when they get there, many homeless people may have left for temporary shelter.
“They will be scattered,” Agnew said.
Among its many purposes, the data is used by state programs that provide services to the homeless.
The Code Purple men’s shelter is at capacity with a 10-person waiting list, and organizers are searching for another shelter site connected with a religious community to accommodate up to 14 people, Agnew said.
The state fire marshal’s office allowed Code Purple to increase occupancy at the men’s shelter from 14 to 25 after last year’s storm, he said. Organizers had to ensure a volunteer who is not a guest remained awake all night as a safety precaution. The higher capacity lasted until the shelter closed in March.
Code Purple has been preparing for the third season of Tharros Village, a structured tent encampment at a former state police barracks site off Route 1 near Lewes, Agnew said. It will open March 16 after the winter Code Purple shelters close and remain open until Nov. 31, after which winter shelters reopen.
Organizers have raised half of the $60,000 needed to improve the Tharros Village site, including better tents and lighting, a cellphone-charging station and a cooling system for medication, Agnew said.
Meanwhile, local groups are preparing for the weekend storm, closely watching as the forecast shifts to lower anticipated snowfall accumulations, and more ice and frigid wind chills lasting through the week.
That could bring other hazards like slick roads, drifting snow, power outages and dangerously cold temperatures. Unsheltered people are often the most vulnerable in such conditions.
The effects of severe storms in recent decades have lasted days and weeks in Sussex County.
That includes an ice storm in 1994, a snowstorm in 1996, two storms within a week that dropped more than 2.5 feet of snow in 2010 and last year’s January snowstorm that closed schools for more than a week after over a foot of snow fell.
“We’re getting ready for the worst,” Malone said.
Kevin Conlon came to the Cape Gazette with nearly 40 years of newspaper experience since graduating from St. Bonaventure University in New York with a bachelor's degree in mass communication. He reports on Sussex County government and other assignments as needed.
His career spans working as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers in upstate New York, including The Daily Gazette in Schenectady. He comes to the Cape Gazette from the Cortland Standard, where he was an editor for more than 25 years, and in recent years also contributed as a columnist and opinion page writer. He and his staff won regional and state writing awards.
Conlon was relocating to Lewes when he came across an advertisement for a reporter job at the Cape Gazette, and the decision to pursue it paid off. His new position gives him an opportunity to stay in a career that he loves, covering local news for an independently owned newspaper.
Conlon is the father of seven children and grandfather to two young boys. In his spare time, he trains for and competes in triathlons and other races. Now settling into the Cape Region, he is searching out hilly trails and roads with wide shoulders. He is a fan of St. Bonaventure sports, especially rugby and basketball, as well as following the Mets, Steelers and Celtics.
