Philadelphia Inquirer: a night in a homeless shelter is a "slumber party"

Camden, New Jersey, is right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. So like Philadelphia, Camden gets some really cold nights during the winter, nights that are treacherously cold for homeless people. And like Philadelphia, in Camden these super-cold nights are called "code blue" nights, when the city actively seeks to get homeless people into shelters rather than let them decide on their own.

Most nights there are more people needing shelter in Camden than there are beds. On code blue nights, the county opens up the lobby to the Aletha Wright Administration Building as a warming center. (The program was started by a woman whose "great-uncle froze to death on a bench in Philadelphia.") Here's how it works on a typical code-blue night:

After bureaucrats leave for the day, dozens of people with nowhere else to stay unwrap blankets and sleeping bags. They play cards, talk about football, eat chips, and fall asleep in the hoods of their coats.

[. . .]

To protect the homeless, and to prevent the warming center from being overrun by those who don't need it, county officials have not publicized the program.

But it is run with efficiency.

Disinfectant is sprayed when necessary, and paper cups are left out for the water fountain. The bathroom is open, available for hand-washing and tooth-brushing but not showering. The lights are kept on all night.

Some keep their heads under jackets, sleeping bags or blankets, and couples spoon as if they were alone in a bedroom at home. In one corner, a woman spreads out snacks - chips, candy and soda - for anyone who's hungry.

[Camden County Freeholder Carmen] Rodriguez said the homeless in the lobby "police themselves," and there have been no major incidents.

On a visit last week, one woman began cursing and complaining about a man. One of two guards walked over, gave the man a warning -- "You have two strikes," she said -- and the situation was defused.

[. . .]

A group smoking cigarettes outside the lobby said that if the warming center weren't there, they would be freezing to death. Several said they were angry with the government because the lobby is their only refuge.

[. . .]

There are services for the homeless in Camden County, including five homeless shelters, all in the city, for a total of about 220 beds. But according to a survey done last January by the nonprofit Corporation for Supportive Housing, there are 541 homeless adults and 181 children in the county, and advocates believe the number now is far beyond that.

Dig the second paragraph of the article, though:

By night, [the building is] part slumber party and part refuge, a last chance for dozens of homeless people who could otherwise freeze to death.

Heaven forbid the homeless in Camden play some cards before huddling down into their clothes for a few hours' sleep (they're made to leave by 6:00 a.m.). This warming center isn't even a full-service shelter: the patrons can't get a shower; there are no actual beds; and it's available only on the most dangerously cold nights of the winter. But to Inky writer Matt Katz, it's a "slumber party" -- presumably because of the sleeping bags, card-playing, and snack foods.

Just like the slumber parties I went to when I was 10! We would all go to Missy's house, lay out our sleeping bags in the den, give each other manicures during Saturday Night Live, and then pass out after shooting the heroin we'd scored that day by selling shoplifted boxes of candy. It was all very Trainspotting. And the paper cups set out by the water fountain in the Camden warming center? Just like the Dixie cup dispenser in Missy's bathroom! I always wanted my mom to get Dixie cups like that for our bathroom.

A few weeks ago, Peter Mucha, another Inky reporter, was trying to talk to homeless people who deliberately stayed away from code-blue shelters in Philadelphia. One person he talked to said she preferred to be outside, because "If I go inside, I'm gonna itch a lot." She says she's albino, though she's plainly not; she does concede, though, "I'm mentally ill, but not as much as I was before." Another homeless person wouldn't speak to the reporter. Maybe that's why the headline for the article is Cold night for homeless who defy Code Blue.

Defy? Isn't it more reasonable to explain that they don't go to a shelter because the shelters are full? Because they can't tolerate the conditions? That they didn't hear about the code? That they're too high or mentally ill to make a rational decision about the situation? But whatever the reason, reporter Mucha doesn't appear to have asked why:

Tanya Singletary, 53, said she wouldn't return to the shelter where she used to stay.

"I'm not going," she said. [. . .] Singletary and [James] Davis, who were both missing front teeth, had been staying at this spot for two months, and had known each other about two years, Davis said.

"I need me a home," she said. "I never had one."

During the day, "we just walk around," he said. They get money panhandling.

Then the article turns to another homeless person, apparently without the reporter's having asked why Singletary won't go back to a place that met her needs for a while. We're left to infer that she's a defiant leech upon society, or maybe that the slumber parties at Philadelphia shelters aren't as fun as the ones in Camden.