{Photograph} by Megan Varner/Getty Pictures
For Atlantans experiencing homelessness, dwelling on the road has its share of risks. But it surely’s on the coldest nights that town’s unsheltered inhabitants turns into acutely susceptible. A 2024 investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Structure discovered that over the earlier three years, at the least 32 individuals who had been confirmed homeless died from chilly publicity in metro Atlanta. And the variety of unsheltered folks is rising: The 2024 Level-in-Time Depend, administered each January, discovered greater than 1,000 folks in Atlanta who weren’t in any momentary housing, up from 738 the yr earlier than. (Survey knowledge for 2025 isn’t but launched.)
“Our shoppers have habit behaviors, points with their psychological well being,” says Torrance Wynn, a avenue drugs useful resource specialist with Mercy Care. “However when temperatures drop, our primary concern is, Will they be alive the subsequent morning?”
Mercy Care’s avenue groups present a spread of direct companies for Atlantans experiencing homelessness. The group, based in Eire by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, who opened Atlanta’s first hospital in 1880, gives major care companies at its clinics, in addition to avenue companies starting from flu vaccinations to each day drugs drop-offs. From there, Mercy Care workers will supply shoppers extra long-term assets reminiscent of transitional housing and psychological healthcare. However step one, says Mercy Care CEO Kathryn Lawler, is assembly folks’s “fundamental human dignity and fundamental human wants.”
With regards to chilly, which means offering no matter they should keep alive. The Metropolis of Atlanta, surrounding counties, and numerous church buildings open warming shelters when temperatures drop, however getting folks there and again requires severe logistics. Warming shelters replenish, and every county has its personal rules, together with the temperature threshold that dictates when shelters open. “Church buildings and shelters open when they need, however [the counties] vary from 38 to 32 levels, and it will depend on precipitation,” says Meredith Swartz, Mercy Care’s chief planning officer. “Plus, all of them use a special forecast.”
Mercy Care workers gives MARTA playing cards or drives folks to pickup areas, the place buses transport them to the shelters (and return them, as shelters usually shut through the day). That’s if they will persuade them to go. Many homeless individuals are deeply cautious of public shelters—with good cause, notes Michelle Keith, a avenue drugs case supervisor. “It may be actually traumatizing to be in an unfamiliar place, particularly in the event you’re fighting trauma,” she says. “Some folks want to remain the place they know they’re secure.”
Some folks decline warming shelters as a result of they will’t deliver pets; others fear their belongings might be stolen whereas they’re gone. Girls who’ve fled home violence might concern bumping into their abuser. For individuals who want to sleep open air, Mercy Care gives hand heaters, blankets, and even mats made by volunteers that present some safety towards the chilly floor.
These measures aren’t at all times sufficient. “It will get emotional throughout this time of yr,” says Wynn, who has been working with Mercy Look after greater than 20 years. “It will possibly get you actually down whenever you discover out among the shoppers you’ve labored with aren’t any
longer right here.”
When the stakes are so excessive, getting even a single hesitant particular person right into a warming shelter is a victory. “It was getting chilly, and I used to be working with this little girl for days, however she didn’t wish to go,” remembers Keith of 1 consumer. “However final yr we discovered her a girls’s shelter in Selena [S. Butler Park in Atlanta], and he or she completely cherished it there.” The lady has since moved right into a transitional shelter, and Mercy Care is discovering her longer-term options. Says Keith, “She simply wanted that first step.”
This text seems in our February 2025 difficulty.
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