Winter’s threat is coming
This is a wonderful time of year in upstate New York — dry, sunny days, summer’s humidity fading into memory. The chilly nights also carry a hint of winter, though — an omen of the bitter cold and ice yet to come, a warning that the homeless, in particular, soon will be exposed to deadly conditions.
In Saratoga Springs, that warning brings an urgent search for a home for Code Blue, the emergency winter shelter for Saratoga County. It’s unfortunately an annual ritual for Shelters of Saratoga, which manages the winter facility, but usually the nonprofit has found a location for Code Blue by now.
In the short-term, SOS needs a building large enough to sleep about 50 men and women from November through April. For the long-term, though, Code Blue needs a permanent home to prevent this annual search.
John Franck, the city’s commissioner of accounts, has an idea worthy of serious consideration. He wants Saratoga Springs to lease land, a surface parking lot on Woodlawn Avenue between Church and Division streets, for a public-private partnership that would build a permanent shelter.
The downtown site has a number of advantages. For one, it can only be developed for a use that provides a public benefit, which a Code Blue shelter certainly would. The location is also in an area where the homeless population is already present, so no motorized transportation to the outskirts of town is necessary. The site’s zoning also allows for the construction.
“It’s the most compassionate solution,” Franck told Times Union reporter Wendy Liberatore.
He’s right. Nevertheless, his proposal is certain to face opposition; homeless housing usually does, especially when planned for visible or desirable locations. Indeed, a plan to build a permanent home for Code Blue on the city’s westside next to an existing SOS Walworth Street shelter — its “sober” facility — was blocked in court by neighbors. Residents argued that they were being asked to shoulder more than a fair share of the burden for a countywide problem.
Still, homelessness in Saratoga Springs is a chronic and perhaps growing problem, and it isn’t going to go away — which brings us back to Franck’s intriguing proposal.
Certainly, the city could find other uses for the site that would benefit the public. But could it find a more important, necessary and urgent one? A well-planned facility could also serve as a resource to help connect homeless people year round to programs that seek to help them get off the street for good.
Lest anyone ignore what’s at stake here, remember what befell 54-yearold Nancy Pitts. On a bitter December night in 2013, Ms. Pitts froze to death on a downtown loading dock — yes, in one of the wealthiest cities in upstate New York.
Six years have passed since that tragedy, and somehow Saratoga Springs still doesn’t have a winter home for the homeless. It’s beyond time to permanently, and humanely, address the problem.