Weather drives outreach urgency

Tanya Baker and Hyacinth King expected to strike out with Little Miss Betty Wilson, a 64-year-old homeless woman bundled up and seated alone on a subway concourse floor near City Hall on Sunday.

It was sunny and above freezing for the first time in days, but the mercury was about to nosedive again in a mercilessly cold winter that has broken records for cold, if not for snow. Outreach workers, Baker and King had a job to do on another Code Blue day in Philadelphia, the 47th so far.

They could have forced Miss Betty to go to a hospital for the night. Code Blue allows for that, which is one reason city officials declare it whenever the temperature feels like 20 degrees. But these partners preferred a soft sell. They knelt and looked her in the eyes.

"You'll be nice and safe," said King, 60, a formerly homeless woman whose insistent tone comes across as tough love (she calls herself "bad cop" in this duo.)

"You want your own apartment, Betty, don't you?" added Baker, 43, whose "good-cop" vibe conveys compassion with persistence.

Little Miss Betty, as they called her, had said no to them many times for a year. But on Sunday, she got up, lugged a torn bookbag, trash bag, and two other bags to the street, and got into Baker and King's Project HOME van, saying close to nothing.

Would she change her mind before arriving at a homeless-housing refuge in North Philadelphia? Baker and King hoped for the best.

The brutal cold this year has not led to a surge in the number of homeless people seeking shelter from street life. Nor has the weather triggered more Code Blue days than there were last winter, Leti Egea-Hinton, a deputy director of the city's Office of Supporting Housing, said Sunday.

"Last year, there were 78 Code Blue days," Egea-Hinton said. With 46 through Saturday, "we look like we might be on par with last year."

There had been only one known death from hypothermia among the street homeless, Egea-Hinton said: "One death too many."

But frigid conditions have lent a sense of greater urgency to the work of Baker and King, whose missionary mojo can unlock the good sense that many, even mentally ill or addicted, homeless people on the street possess and act on from time to time.

"Most people, no matter how addicted or mentally ill, when it gets that bad, the overwhelming majority will want to go inside, despite their natural tendency," said Laura Weinbaum, vice president of public affairs and strategic initiatives for Project HOME.

"Self-preservation," added Weinbaum, "is a very primal instinct."

Toward the start of their 3-to-midnight shift, Baker and King had talked to a good dozen other chronically homeless people. They had taken names, Social Security numbers, and asked some to choose refuge over another night on the street. Most were known to the pair, and to the homeless system they had joined and abandoned time and again.

None, however, agreed to hop in the van - even though many greeted the outreach partners with hugs or smiles.

"Clyde Casey is on my focus list. I've been dealing with Clyde for years," Baker said of a disarmingly affable man she engaged along Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Casey had cycled in and out of the system for years. His refusal to get off the streets was perplexing even to him, he said, explaining that when it got really cold last week, he felt despondent.

"When you're going to sleep and shaking so bad that, if I don't wake up, I won't wake up. You're too afraid of committing suicide because of religious beliefs."

He pointed to a struggle with mental illness: "Normal people do not subject themselves to this sort of punishment. There seems to be something abnormal in my mind."

A psychiatrist has diagnosed Casey as suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, Baker said.

Casey promised Baker he would go to see her at Project HOME's offices on Monday. Would he keep his word?

"I'm-a pray on it," Baker said as she got into the van and headed toward City Hall, where she and King would scoop up Miss Betty.

Baker furiously made calls to clear a bed for Miss Betty as the van rolled toward a city-run housing refuge for the chronically homeless near Temple University.

"Miss Betty, what's your date of birth?" Baker asked.

"Oct. 20, 1950," Miss Betty replied from the backseat.

Baker did not let it end on so clinical a note. "Miss Betty," she said, "we're very happy you came today."

The van parked at 1715 Montgomery Ave. The three women went inside. If Miss Betty signed up and stayed, she would one day get her own place.

Within minutes, Baker and King reappeared outside. As soon as they hopped into the minivan, they exchanged exuberant high-fives.

"We never know when they're going to say yes, Baker said, jubilant at the outcome.

The pair drove off toward Center City, their next job to find an 82-year-old man who had recently wandered away from a shelter.

Said Baker: "We're going to go hunt for him underground."