Freezing to Death

It’s a frigid Saturday afternoon in February with two inches of fresh snow on the ground. Joppa winter heat team volunteers stand by their pickup truck, near a homeless camp, trying to stomp feeling into their feet. Their fingers are stiffening in their ski gloves, so they stuff their hands in their pockets or tuck them high under their armpits. A gust of wind, sharp and cutting, makes them hunch their shoulders and duck deeper into their coat collars.

“I can’t imagine living outside,” says Joppa volunteer and videographer, Adam Beecher. “Sometimes I think it’s cold in my home, but then I think how tough the homeless have it. It boggles my mind.”

Around the Metro, more than 100 homeless people are living in tents, shacks, and vehicles every day during this brutal winter.

“If it wasn’t for these guys bringing me a heater and fuel, I would have been dead somewhere, frozen to death,” says Ken, a homeless man. “I don’t like shelters. I’m a vet (with) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—don’t like to be around people.” Ken lives in a structure that’s little more than a windbreak and sometimes jogs just to raise his body temperature.

At another camp Eric ran out of fuel the night before. “It ain’t very comfortable when you can see your breath inside the tent. Without Joppa’s heaters there would be a lot of sick people,” he says. “To stay warm, you have to go downtown, hang out in the library or something, but that’s quite a ways from here.”

“I don’t know what else these people could do if it wasn’t for the heaters,” says volunteer, Frank Green. “We deliver 40 or 50 tanks a week, but it’s expensive, $400 to $500 a week.” Since then, propane prices have more than doubled!

On this trip the team found four new campers, people who had timed out of shelters or fallen on hard times. On most trips, throughout the winter, volunteers find new homeless people.

Frank finds bringing heat to people very rewarding. “We go into a camp and call, ‘Joppa’s here with propane,’ and you’ll hear them cheering inside the tent.”

“They’re really decent people who have just fallen on hard times or made bad decisions. We come out to give them a hug, pray with them and show them God’s love. If you want to get plugged in and do something to serve people and to serve God, try Joppa. There are lots of ways to volunteer, to help.”

The sun is getting low as team members skid down the hill to Don’s camp. They’ll have to use the rope to climb back up to the pickup. Roy, who’s living under a nearby bridge, hails the camp and comes in to ask for a heater.

“You know, they found Bill dead today,” he tells them. “Over there, under the bridge. Bill had a room at the shelter, but came here to drink beer and ended up freezing to death.” Roy pauses, “You can’t help but think about dying like that, living outside. And the hardest part: a lot of people just don’t care.”

Want to help? Purchase critical winter survival supplies from the Joppa Online Store.