Lynn shelter director: We won’t turn cold shoulder to homeless

LYNN – A winter warm up is on tap for today but it will provide barely enough time for the Lynn Shelter Association to catch its breath before it prepares for another cold snap.”It’s been pretty crowded,” said Lynn Shelter Association Director Marjorie St. Paul. “We’re contracted for 44 beds but we’ve been at 60 since the beginning of the winter and on the really cold days we’re over 75.”St. Paul said turning away anyone in weather like the region experienced over the past week is “scary.””It’s not a good time to turn anyone away because some may very well not make it,” she said.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, temperatures will hover near 60 degrees today but by Thursday evening it will be back in the low 20s.To ready for the low temperatures the shelter will stock up on food, linens, towels and on seriously cold nights they will set chairs up along the edges of the room and available hallways.”If there are not enough cots or mats for people some will sleep in chairs,” she said.But even when temperatures slip into the single digits not everyone heads inside.”Some have built quite amazing little places for themselves and they just don’t come in,” St. Paul said.They do, however, check in.After particularly bad nights, St. Paul said they will check various haunts and known locations to make sure everyone is alright but often they will check in with the shelter as well. They let us know they’re alive and okay, she said. She said Lynn has been lucky, considering the percentage of homeless they have had much fewer deaths than other communities.One of the problems St. Paul faces on bitterly cold nights is families. The Lynn Shelter is a single adult only shelter and it does not accept families. Families must report to the Department of Housing and Community Development in Salem, which can’t under any circumstances turn them away but St. Paul said they sometimes do. She said it’s not unusual for families to be denied a place to stay simply because they are short one document but that is where Emily Herzig and Shelia Casey from Neighborhood Legal Services excel.”They do extraordinary work advocating for the homeless,” she said.Tonight will also be the annual count of homeless carried out by the shelter as well as other Lynn agencies.”We have 1,500-plus families in motels, 3,500 families in shelters and last year we placed 3,500 families,” St. Paul said. “And we probably have all that and more in shadow families because not everyone shows up in the count.”St. Paul said she knows of one family living in a storage unit, others bunk down in cars or couch surf with friends or relatives, which means they aren’t seen by census counters.Last year there were 26 people who lived regularly on the street, St. Paul said, and about 800 adults who passed through the shelter. About 200 of those stick around long enough to get housing, the others move on, she said.”I give giant kudos to Lynn,” she added. “This is a city that truly cares.”Unfortunately one warm day gives St. Paul and her staff little relief before the next intense wave of clients comes through the door, many of whom will need medical attention and all of whom will need attention.St. Paul said the issue of homelessness recently hit home hard for everyone who works at the shelter when one of their staff members lost their home and found themselves a statistic.”A family of five goes from being okay to suddenly homeless, and having worked with the homeless for 12 years herself, it kind of brings it home,” she said. “It could happen to everybody and you can’t tell when it’s going to happen.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].