Stephanie Rigney’s social-anxiety disorder will keep her out of Denver homeless shelters on Christmas weekend as temperatures dip to 2 below zero.
The 37-year-old woman would rather risk frostbite than spend a night in a shelter with hundreds of people. Still, the veteran street person isn’t so worried about herself as the scores of young homeless people who don’t know the storm is coming or won’t be ready for arctic conditions.
“I’m scared how many people are going to die. There’s a lot of newly homeless who don’t have good survival skills,” Rigney said on a bright and warm Tuesday afternoon while standing in the shade of a mammoth oak tree in Civic Center park. It was a little more than a day before the storm was expected to hit downtown Denver, causing temperatures to plummet from the 60s on Wednesday to a high in the 20s on Thursday.
Forecasters said the temperature is expected to dip below zero on Saturday for the first time since Jan. 6, when Denver hit minus 7.
According to a study by the Denver Medical Examiner’s Office, 20 homeless people froze to death on Denver streets between 2000 and 2012.
While staff at Denver homeless shelters scramble to prepare for the storm by putting down floor mats and beefing up emergency services, there are still many homeless who will be outside when temperatures plummet. Stacy Parker, spokeswoman for Denver Rescue Mission, said staffers at a chain of eight shelters and facilities are spreading the word to the homeless that they need to find a way to get indoors soon.
“It’s dangerous to be outside, especially with this storm coming. In preparation for this cold snap, we’re making sure we have enough room to get people out of the cold,” Parker said.
The Denver Rescue Mission is boosting its capacity at three homeless shelters for men in the Denver metro area by hundreds of beds and floor sleeping mats to around 900 beds.
Women, children and men will also be allowed to stay for breakfast and lunch from 6 a.m. to around 5 p.m. at the rescue mission’s Lawrence Street Community Center, 2222 Lawrence St. Dinner will only be served to men, Parker said.
Sleeping capacity is also being added to the mission’s 48th Street Center, in northeast Park Hill, which is owned by the city of Denver and run by the Denver Rescue Mission. The Holly Center, 5725 E. 39th Ave., will have beds or mats for 200 people, she said.
“We’re finding space for as many people as possible,” Parker said.
Buses will circulate through the city picking up homeless people and taking them to not only the rescue mission but numerous other shelters, including those run by Catholic Charities, which offers beds for women and children.
As of January, Denver volunteers counted 3,336 homeless people in Denver. Of those, 600 are on the streets. Most of the homeless are in temporary housing such as shelters and transitional facilities, according to Amy Fidelis, a spokeswoman for Denver Human Services.
After high temperatures in the 60s on Wednesday, the weather will take a sharp turn. Snow is expected Thursday, and temperatures will quickly drop, the National Weather Service says. Thursday’s high is forecast in the 20s, and Saturday is expected to bring bitter cold with lows below zero and a high in the teens.
“Wednesday will be the final warm day before a chance of snow and cold temperatures throughout the region Thursday,” the weather service says.
The Denver Police Department has outreach officers who this week will patrol the areas where homeless people sleep outdoors to make sure they are safe and get them any help they might need, department spokesman Sonny Jackson said.
Jay Gavin, 47, was lying on the grass Tuesday afternoon reading “Train,” a body-building magazine when he acknowledged he hadn’t heard of a storm on its way. He said that after four hospitalizations in the past two months for pneumonia, he might not want to risk being outdoors Wednesday night.
“I’ll probably go to one of the shelters,” he said. “I’ve been in the hospital a bunch of times.”
But 36-year-old Jeremy Dalrymple scoffed at the idea of going to what he describes as drug- and bedbug-ridden homeless shelters for any reason. The recovering addict, who has been living on Denver’s streets since 2007, said he hasn’t returned to one of the shelters in a decade, ever since he awoke with a knife blade to his throat. He fought off that attack, but he said he’d rather fight the elements than shelter with criminals.
Dalrymple has weathered — coated with layers of coats and sleeping bags — blizzards and cold snaps in alleys, doorways and tents. He recalled the night his right little toe got frostbitten in his steel-plated boots, and he reminisced about the days that he could sleep on heating grates. The grates are all covered now in downtown Denver. He has survived 10 winters on Denver’s streets.
“Some of us get away with it. Some of us don’t,” he said.
One day, a few years ago, he spoke with a homeless friend he only knew as Tom, and the next morning in Lincoln Park he saw him covered with snow and frozen to death lying under a tree, just across the street from the state Capitol.
Rigney said she is confident that her accommodations recovered from numerous Dumpsters — a yoga mat, a large, fluffy dog pillow, four coats, a tarp and numerous sleeping bags and blankets — will help her survive Christmas weekend.
But as much as she fears fellow homeless comrades will freeze to death over the next several days, she refused to divulge her secret sleeping spot. A protected sleeping spot during an arctic freeze is a matter of life and death.
