ITHACA, N.Y. — Late Monday morning, dozens of people streamed out of the Econo Lodge in Lansing, leaving the modest hotel that, for some, served as their only stable sleeping quarters since October.
The Econo Lodge is one of the primary local hotels that host the local homeless population during New York State’s Code Blue period. Code Blue protections mandate that counties find shelter for homeless people who are outside at night when the temperature falls below freezing.
The hotel stay comes free of charge. The county initially foots the bill for the rooms, but is reimbursed by the state. But Code Blue officially ended on April 15, and won’t come into effect again until next fall unless temperatures drop below freezing at night again before that, according to county officials.
The program’s yearly conclusion sends an influx of people in search of housing and shelter, some of whom end up spending the warmer months in “the Jungle,” the colloquial term for Ithaca’s homeless encampments.
The number of people who regularly used Code Blue for shelter during the winter has not yet been calculated and can fluctuate each day. As late as April 9, 151 people were using Code Blue housing, consistent with the number who were using it in mid-March as well, according to data from Tompkins County Director of Communications Dominick Recckio. Now that the program has ended, they all must find housing elsewhere.
Local advocates and homeless services organizations have been preparing for a higher number of people in need of housing than in years prior, according to interviews with several workers in the homeless service community.
Members of the Ithaca Tenants Union and No Mas Lagrimas stationed themselves outside the Econo Lodge and the Department of Social Services (DSS) building on West State Street in Ithaca on Monday, offering free clothing, food and other supplies. One volunteer showed visitors to the table how to pitch a tent in case they have to go to the Jungle or camp outside elsewhere.
Ana Ortiz, the founder of No Mas Lagrimas, said, “The county, the city, they don’t need feedback. They just need to give us a place so we can do [our stuff]. […] Why wait until the end of [Code Blue] for a solution?”
Ortiz makes no secret about her hopes that her work inspires the people she helps. When she arrived in Ithaca 20 years ago, Ortiz said she was in the homeless shelter with her children. Four years ago, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she started No Mas Lagrimas out of the kitchen in her home, and it has quickly grown since then.
On Monday, Ortiz and others were making bagels and other food in her kitchen and bringing it to their table outside DSS to distribute.
It remains to be seen where the people who were utilizing Code Blue protections will go. Some will couch-surf; others will be able to obtain temporary housing assistance so they can remain housed. Some will likely stay in the Jungle.
REACH Medical is also expanding its outreach services in response to what Community Outreach and Case Manager Anna Vergari said is “more people and more need.”
That started with weeks of preparation, which included visits and outreach to find people using Code Blue to intercept them before they are forced into homelessness.
“We put those hotels on our [outreach] schedule every week leading up to the end of Code Blue to reach out to people, help with housing applications,” Vergari said. “Now that we have hit April 15, for the next several weeks we will have an increased presence in the encampments to keep an eye on new camps and new faces out there.”
She said that includes maintaining a presence outside or near the DSS building to help people who are having difficulty navigating any requisite processes to get assistance. Vergari said they also want to help people who are new to the Jungle understand any new rules on camping the City of Ithaca may enforce this year.
REACH is among a group of organizations that are increasing their coordination have to address the increased level of need. The Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County, Second Wind Cottages, OAR, the Southern Tier AIDS Program, the Salvation Army, TCAction, the Learning Web and Ultimate Re-Entry Opportunity all meet frequently, said Deb Wilkie, the homeless crisis alleviation coordinator for Second Wind Cottages.
“We typically have meetings once a week as a collaboration,” said Wilkie. “There are more agencies working together now, all-in-all.”
Wilkie said over the past few months, there has been a concerted effort to get people who lived in the Jungle over the winter into permanent supportive housing, and several similar approaches have been made to people who utilized Code Blue.
This is an annual practice, but with a “housing surge” underway, as Wilkie called it, this year has found more success.
A longtime resident of the Jungle named Chris, who asked not to use his last name, said on Monday he was able to secure an apartment at the new Asteri Ithaca building in one of its 40 supportive housing units.
“They really got on us this year, coming around like ‘Do you still want to be homeless?’” Chris said.
The Jungle has changed in recent years, he said. More people living in the encampments has brought more crime and a less habitable environment than when he first moved to the Jungle several years ago — not to mention the area is now the subject of a clean-up demand from Tompkins County Environmental Health officials. Last year’s kidnapping and killing of Thomas Rath, a Jungle resident at the time, further pushed him to leave the encampments.
He said he is glad to be moving into supportive housing, which he thinks will be more stable than his cycle between affordable housing and the Jungle.
“It’s good,” Chris said. “It feels good.”
Wilkie said any success this year will be used to build for years going forward.
“We’ve seen the numbers trending with more and more [unhoused] people for a long time,” Wilkie said. “I don’t see a reverse in that, unfortunately.”
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