The Man behind Code Blue
By Albert B. Kelly
It was with a good deal of satisfaction that I heard the
news about a piece of legislation entitled S1088 which would require all 21
counties to have a Code Blue plan in place. Naturally there was some pride for
our community because some of the momentum for Code Blue got started in
Bridgeton.
If you’re not familiar with Code Blue, it’s a community
effort involving volunteers, faith-based organizations and the good will of
people throughout the county to provide temporary warming centers during the
cold weather months so that our most vulnerable citizens, our homeless, can
have a warm place to be at night and maybe get a hot meal.
But as much satisfaction as I might like to take in having
been part of helping Code Blue get started, I can’t help but think of Joseph
Hanshaw. I say that because Mr. Hanshaw was the inspiration for Code Blue. It
was his unfortunate death that became the impetus for us to act.
On an extremely cold Monday night in early December of 2013,
Mr. Henshaw, presumably trying to find either some type of sheltered space or
clothing to wrap up and get warm in, got trapped in a clothes drop bin door and
being unable to free himself, he froze to death.
I try and remember Mr. Henshaw because it would be easy to
forget. Not because he was forgettable as a person, but because we all too
easily dismiss the homeless as a general category. By all the standard measures
of a life, those living on the margins and in the shadows don’t bring much to
the table.
They, the homeless, as a category, come with little to
nothing in the way of accomplishments, they have no impressive credentials,
they contribute little or nothing to the life of the community, and they’ve
accumulated nothing much that suggests value, or so goes the conventional
wisdom.
Yet they are, or were, someone’s child, parent, sibling,
aunt, uncle, grandparent, or friend. Even though all we may see is a “homeless
person” when we look at them, their lives mattered to someone at some point
beyond just being an object of charity.
As a category, the homeless are forgettable because, if
we’re honest, it’s just plain easier for us. Homelessness is a messy thing and
what homelessness does to a person, tends to make them scary or ugly- objects
of scorn.
Even worse are the things that bring people to homelessness;
chew on that for a minute and it’s far easier
to blame the homeless for their station in life than to wrap ourselves around
the idea that the lives we’ve constructed are fragile things and it takes far
less than we’re willing to imagine to have our lives unravel.
For all those reasons, I try and remember Mr. Henshaw. I did
not know him or his family, nor am I familiar with whatever combination of
things brought him to a place where he was alone on the street on a frigid Monday
night- in December- in 2013- so that a clothes drop bin seemed like a good
option.
I try to remember because no matter what anyone might want
to say about the way he lived or died, his life was not without value if for no
other reason than the fact that he inspired Code Blue and because he did, someone
else won’t die simply because its December or January or February or March.
S-1088 is a good bill as it requires all the counties to
work with their Emergency Management Coordinators to ensure that there are Code
Blue plans in place, which may be carried out by designated volunteer
organizations as happens here in our county.
Another bill (A-4519) would allow religious organizations to
use their facilities as emergency homeless shelters in cold weather,
notwithstanding the zoning ordinances and it would provide certain liability
protections for those organizations except for intentional or willful
misconduct.
It’s doubtful that S1088 will be named in some way after Mr.
Henshaw, or that he will even be referenced, though that’s not a bad idea.
Those of us who were involved in launching Code Blue efforts and remain
involved up to the present will disappear at some point and when the last of us
is gone, no one will remember how it all began or why or that it had anything at
all to do with a man named Joseph Henshaw.