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Monday, October 29, 2018

Code Blue and the Good You Do


                              Code Blue and the Good You Do
By Albert B Kelly

It has been hard lately not to give a passing thought to winter as autumn settles in with temps down in the 40’s and even some upper 30’s overnight. It is a beautiful time of year as the leaves change and the crisp chill in the air reminds us that winter is near and that soon enough, we’ll hunker down in the warmth of our homes to enjoy the holidays, put the finishing touches on another year, and wait out the long shadows until spring comes our way again.

But if you’re one of the dozens of homeless in our area, you’re not thinking about the leaves or the holidays or the beauty of autumn. If you’ve heard of climate change or El Niño, you’re hoping it’s real and that it might lead to milder temps. Absent that, you’re just wondering how you’re going to survive from day to day and maybe make it through another winter.

That’s why Code Blue matters. Some years we catch a break and the numbers of Code Blue nights are few because temps stay relatively mild which basically means anything above freezing. Other years, we get absolutely hammered as we did last year with 45 nights of cold and assorted weather that necessitated calling a Code Blue for the county’s homeless.

However worn out we volunteers might feel over the course of a winter, we remember when it all started back in the brutally cold December of 2013. A Bridgeton man named Joseph Hanshaw was attempting to either get a coat out of the donation box behind the Salvation Army building or to climb into the box itself to try and stay warm. Either way, he got stuck and died of exposure.

Out of that tragedy Bridgeton City government, the faith-based community, and citizen-volunteers mobilized and started Code Blue utilizing a handful of churches willing to open to their doors as warming centers on colder nights to allow the homeless to find a little shelter from the storm. It has grown much since then and your donations make this success possible.

A Code Blue is called when temperatures are expected to be 32 degrees with precipitation or 25 degrees without precipitation overnight. When Code Blue happens, participating churches in Bridgeton, Millville, or Vineland make space available for an overnight warming center for the homeless. Along with temporary shelter, people can also get a hot meal.

So you know how much your donations matter, consider that last season, which had 45 Code Blue nights, 4,300 hot meals were distributed. Each Code Blue night in Bridgeton, Millville, and Vineland, requires a minimum 42 volunteers covering three shifts of 3-5 hours each. The program has 300-plus approved volunteers and last season, they collectively gave 5,670 hours of help. Code Blue costs $500 a night to operate- covering reimbursement to churches as well as equipment and related needs.

Out of the Code Blue initiative grew the nonprofit organization M25. In addition to coordinating and overseeing Code Blue each season, M25 is also focused on ending homelessness through a “Housing First” approach. The idea being that to help transition someone out of chronic homelessness, which often has long term joblessness, substance abuse, mental health issues, or similar issues as contributing or causal factors; the first step is providing a stable place to live.

This matters because so many programs condition their help on a homeless person being clean and sober, having a job, a permanent address, or some combination of these. To my mind, such conditional help is not meant to benefit the homeless so much as to hedge against the possibility that homelessness is a failure of character. When I get to thinking that way, I try and remember guys like Johnny Bobbitt.

But all of that is to say that winter is coming and it will hold its share of cold and frigid nights and perhaps more than a few inches of sleet and snow. When it comes, we’ll be calling Code Blue so that those among us who are homeless or hungry or broken down by life will have a place to go- shelter from the storm.

If you can and if you would, please consider helping us either by volunteering or making a monetary donation to help support these efforts. You can reach M25 by visiting www.m25initiative.org or by calling 1-844-625-4673. Whatever you can do is greatly appreciated and may just save a life.