What Does ‘Code Blue’ Mean for Homeless New Yorkers?

With frigid weather in the forecast this week, City Limits spoke to Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park about what Code Blue entails, and what it means for people experiencing homelessness.

Each night, thousands of New Yorkers sleep unsheltered, according to estimates—bedding down on the city’s streets or in parks, transit stations and other public spaces.

When winter temperatures dip below freezing, the Department of Homeless Services declares a “Code Blue,” or weather emergency, deploying extra resources and easing certain shelter intake rules to ensure anyone who needs it has access to a safe place indoors.

With frigid weather in the forecast this week, City Limits spoke to DHS Commissioner Molly Wasow Park about what Code Blue entails, and what it means for people experiencing homelessness.

This conversation below has been condensed and edited for clarity.

What is Code Blue, and when does it kick in?

Code Blue is a standard for a weather emergency. This is actually something that’s set in state law. A notice is issued when the temperature drops to 32 degrees or below, including wind chill, between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. In New York City, what Code Blue means is that we enhance the work that we are already doing: we have 24/7 outreach, no matter what the weather, and we offer shelter to anybody who needs it—again, no matter what the weather. But this is a state law, and so in other parts of the state, Code Blue is really the difference between shelter and not shelter, so that they are actually only offering shelter during Code Blue times—not in every jurisdiction, but in many places.

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We have drop-in centers, which are, as the name suggests, drop-in—no matter what the weather, people can enter a drop-in center. But typically for shelters or for Safe Havens, either clients are placed there through the outreach teams coordinating with DHS, or for traditional shelter, after clients go through an intake process. So those aren’t facilities where people just walk in off the street, but during Code Blue, if somebody does walk in off the street, we’ll make sure that they are accommodated. They might be in a cafeteria or something like that, but we will certainly make sure that people are safe and warm. There are other types of facilities, emergency room waiting rooms and things like that, that also can serve as warming centers during Code Blue events.

You mentioned Safe Havens. During the mayor’s State of the City speech last week, he announced plans to add 900 new Safe Haven beds. For people who aren’t familiar with that term, what are Safe Havens and what makes them different from a traditional shelter?

Safe Havens are essentially a low barrier form of shelter. So typically, for shelter, clients enter through a centralized intake site, and they’ll go through a formal intake process. They go to an assessment site for a couple of weeks where we get to know them a little bit, determine what program shelter is right. For the low barrier sites or Safe Havens, clients are able to skip the intake process. An outreach team will coordinate with the DHS and make the placement directly.

Typically, the Safe Haven sites are a little bit smaller and lower density than a traditional shelter, and they have somewhat more flexible rules. So for example, a traditional shelter has an 11 p.m. curfew—if you’re not in by 11 p.m. you may lose your bed. Come in after 11, we’ll certainly make sure you are placed, but it will be placed somewhere, not necessarily at the same site. There’s more flexibility on that for a Safe Haven.

Really the goal here is to meet people where they are. We know that those experiencing unsheltered homelessness have been failed by every level of society and government, and there’s a real trust issue there. So being able to meet people where they are and accommodate them in these more flexible and somewhat smaller sites, we’ve found, has been really helpful in connecting people to services, and ultimately to permanent housing.

I know that that has been a priority—this idea of Safe Havens as the first step towards a permanent home.

It’s really been a priority for us, and for me in particular. I came out of the affordable housing world, and so I talk housing all the time. Some of this really, frankly, just has been a managerial change, a change in how we approach this. With unsheltered clients, we used to declare victory when they were off the streets, off the subway, and they had come inside. But shelter, be it a Safe Haven or shelter, isn’t the goal for anybody. So we made sure that we were really incorporating our streets team into our permanent housing conversations, that they were part of that continuum. And you’re really seeing those numbers: something like 2,800 [permanent housing] placements out of the Safe Haven and stabilization beds since the start of this administration.

A question I get asked a lot, just because people know that I cover housing and homelessness is, ‘If I see somebody outside that I’m worried about, what should I do?’ I think sometimes there’s a hesitation in calling either 311 or 911—that can be an uncomfortable feeling for some New Yorkers. What would you say to someone who might have that kind of discomfort?

Absolutely call 311. If it is during Code Blue, that 311 call actually will get routed to 911, because we have real concerns about people’s safety in cold weather. When it’s not a Code Blue environment, it will be an outreach team that responds to that.

We are really proud of the outreach work that we do. We are out 24/7, we have about 400 outreach workers across DHS and our not-for-profit partners combined. Those are people who are trained in the kind of clinical response that we want for somebody who is really in a challenging situation. And not only is that going to address the particular individual’s situation, but we also use that 311 data to think about where we need to be deploying resources, where we want to be directing the outreach teams, so it’s incredibly useful for us when people call 311. And as I said, during Code Blue, if there is an emergency, it will get routed to 911, so that we can have that really rapid response, and to try and get people to the indoor spaces where it’s safer.

So if it’s a during Code Blue, it might be EMT or police officers or something like that? But it’s not about getting somebody in trouble, it’s about getting them connected?

Absolutely. New York City does not criminalize homelessness. People have the right to be on the street, but it is not the goal for anybody to be on the street, right? We want to get people inside. We invest in outreach because we know, as said earlier, that people have been failed by so many different levels of government, by society. We are building those trust relationships, and we work really hard at that. Overwhelmingly, the majority of times, when people come inside, come to shelter, come to a Safe Haven, sometimes go to a hospital, they’re doing that voluntarily because they have decided to accept the services that are offered through outreach. This is really about keeping people safe.

Relatedly, the city has the annual HOPE count coming up. What is it, and why is it important?

So HOPE is the most important event of the year for us. We are joined by close to 2,000 volunteers on it every year, and we go out and we assess the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. We have volunteers pan out across the city to count the number of people who they see experiencing homelessness, either on the streets or on the subways, and it gives us incredibly valuable data that we use for allocating resources and making our plans for the coming year.

So anyone can volunteer? What does somebody do on a HOPE night?

We are absolutely happy to have people volunteer. You can sign up at nyc.gov/hope. People are grouped into teams, so they start out at a site—we have sites all over the city so people can sign up for a site that is close to them. There’s real time training that happens before people go out, and then they go out in teams of four or five people.

They are assigned a several block area, it might be slightly larger if it’s a less dense neighborhood, and there’s an app that people use with a short script, and anybody who they encounter who’s out, they will ask that short script: Do you have a place to sleep? Did you have a place to sleep last night? The instruction is really not to make assumptions, but really to ask anybody that they encounter, enter the data into the app, and then they go on their way. We say that it is 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. I think for most people, it is a much shorter event than that, that they’re out on the street.

How do you use this information?

The city invests a lot in addressing unsheltered homelessness. We think it’s really important to, but we want to be making sure that we’re investing those resources in a way that aligns with need. So where are people? Are they in core Manhattan, are we starting to see more people further out in the boroughs? What are the different trends, where do we think we need to site our next set of Safe Havens, where do we want to direct outreach teams for the next six months? We use all of this to inform how we allocate resources.

Homelessness has increased nationwide. We have a new president and administration coming in. How do you see New York City’s situation with the nation overall, and are there things you’re hoping for from Washington this year, or concerns you have?

New York is very consistent with the national patterns. Numbers are up, and the factors that the HUD report identified are all really true here: asylum is a significant driver, as is the cost of housing, as is the loss of pandemic-era income supports. So we see all of that in New York City, and we see that nationally.

I think the place where you really see New York City differing from a lot of the rest of the country is the proportion of sheltered versus unsheltered. In New York City, 95 percent of the people experiencing homelessness are sheltered. That’s a reflection of our right to shelter, and the work that DHS does. It’s pretty different in other parts of the country.

With respect to the federal transition, I think we have concerns about a lot of the income support resources that are critical to all low income households, including those experiencing homelessness. There’s been lots of discussion about additional requirements on SNAP. In the first Trump administration, there was a pilot program to put work requirements on Medicaid that we could certainly see come back. So these are all things that we’re going to be watching really, really closely.

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