Ronnie Lord entered the overnight warming station wearing three pairs of pants, five shirts, three pairs of socks and a jacket.
He was grateful to escape the cold by bedding down recently in the recreation center that the city of Atlanta had temporarily opened up for those without homes.
On plenty of nights, the 52 year old is out in the elements. He often sleeps in an uncovered area next to a church. And sometimes, if it’s rainy, windy and cold, he sleeps in a port-a-potty, sitting upright on the seat.
“Sad as it is, but true. It’s horrible. You know what it smells like,” he said. “If I get two to four hours of sleep, I’m happy.”
Lord is one of many homeless people in metro Atlanta scrambling to stay warm, or at least not freeze to death, when temperatures fall into the 30s or lower. Some won’t survive. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office says the deaths of at least 30 people have been tied to hypothermia in the last three years. Most of them were considered homeless.
With weather forecasts calling for temperatures to drop well below freezing in the week ahead, many are bracing themselves. Some have come up with strategies for how to survive.
Though warming centers will open, some of those who are homeless lack the transportation to get to them. Then, there are people who don’t even know the centers have opened. Or they are reluctant to go because they don’t want to leave behind their crucial belongings, like tents or bicycles or stashes of food and clothing, fearing the items might get stolen. Or they don’t go because they are uncomfortable in crowds or with shelter rules.
For those who remain outside, the quest for warmth is often a daily struggle. Ingenuity is required as people scavenge for a combustible material and vessels to burn it in: soda cans, flower pots, old grills. Inside the port-a-potty, if it’s really cold, Lord sometimes douses a toilet paper roll with hand sanitizer then lights it on fire to warm the cramped space.
Caution is also required, but not always exercised. People living in homeless encampments in wooded areas or under bridges and elsewhere say they have seen fires get out of control, destroying whatever meager shelter and possessions a person might have.
But the damage can spread to others.
In the days before Christmas, an area near a tent site under Cheshire Bridge Road caught fire, damaging a roadway that’s had to close before because of a blaze. Officials haven’t cited a cause of the fire, which occurred on a night when temperatures fell to 29 degrees. Work to fix the span could force that portion of the busy roadway to remain blocked off for 10 weeks, according to one city council member.
Nearby business owners fear they’ll take a financial beating from the shutdown. Some are still recovering from a fire in the summer of 2021 that led to the replacement of a nearby bridge, cutting traffic on the road for more than a year.
And in 2017, towering flames caused the stunning collapse of a raised portion of I-85 in Atlanta. Authorities accused a homeless man of setting a chair on fire under the interstate, but charges against him were later dropped. Federal safety officials cited a contributing factor for the blaze: a massive stockpile of combustible plastic pipes that the state had stored under the bridge. The interstate rebuild cost $16.6 million.
There have been numerous other fires in the area, prompting officials to speed up plans to move some people from their makeshift shelters into a hotel and possibly into permanent housing. The mayor has previously suggested that is a key step in reducing fire risks.
In the meantime, fire extinguishers would help, said Matthew Welch, a 34-year-old who lives in woods near Buford Highway at Lenox Road.
He has an extinguisher, but it’s been emptied fighting past fires.
Fire and frigidity pose competing risks. Welch said a friend of his who is homeless lost toes after getting frostbite.
Welch recently experimented with a new option to block biting wind and rain. He wrapped clear plastic film around a canopy frame. He also planned to partially bury a grill near where he sleeps so he can light fires to keep warm.
Not far away, a camp fire burned in the center of a neighbor’s tarp-wrapped shelter. Mounds of clothes lay nearby. Smoke billowed in the enclosure. The occupant, warming by the embers, said the kind of fire he built — near things that can accidentally burn — is exactly the wrong kind of fire. Too dangerous, he said. You have to keep your eye on it all the time. It would have been better to use clay pots, he said.
Clay pots radiate heat longer. Others said they light little candles inside a flower pot, then put another pot on top, leaving enough space for air to keep the fire fed so that it acts as a mini furnace.
Another go-to option: cutting the top off a Coke can, puncturing the sides and filling it with paper soaked in rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer that can be ignited. One supposed benefit is it emits little visible smoke inside tents. Another person mentioned burning chunks of seat cushions.
Will Bittler, 59, who said he worked for decades as an electrician, seeks out hardwoods, like old oak furniture left in dumpsters. He splits off small pieces with a chisel or a small pocket knife that he hits with a rock or chunk of asphalt. He feeds the fuel into a tiny covered grill, one of his most important belongings. “I can’t stand being cold ... that feeling of not being able to get warm.”
He and others say they limit how and where they start fires. The flames and smoke are likely to draw the attention of people in nearby homes or businesses and inevitably lead to calls to the police or fire department. So sometimes, people who are homeless wait until deep into the night, when most of the city is asleep, to start fires.
Often, they also look for options beyond combustion.
Bittler said if he has $2.50 he’ll ride MARTA trains back and forth — Doraville to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, back to Doraville, back to the airport again — hoping to catch a little sleep without attracting law enforcement. At times, he’ll couch surf at a friend’s place or hunker down over a cup of coffee at a late-night Waffle House.
Behind a building along Cheshire Bridge Road, a 43-year-old man who would disclose only his middle name — Jackson — said he wasn’t sure how he would stay warm in the coming night. His eyes moistened at the thought. He wasn’t wearing a jacket. It had gotten soaked in a recent rain, he said, and when that happens, it can take days to dry out. That’s a problem for anyone who’s homeless, but particularly for him. “I’m a diabetic, so my circulation is really messed up.”
Then a thought came to him: A friend was in a local hospital awaiting gallbladder surgery the next day. He wondered if he and his fiancée might stay in the hospital room, too.
On a recent night, dozens of homeless people lined up at a city warming center, some wheeling small suitcases or carrying backpacks and sleeping bags.
Inside the center, every guest is required to go through a metal detector and their bags are searched. They are given cold sandwiches at night and Danish pastries for breakfast. They sleep in one big room, with row after row of cots, each outfitted with two blankets. They can take hot showers, but they need to be out of the center early the next morning.
It’s a scene that plays out around much of metro Atlanta. Government jurisdictions and nonprofits have various triggers for when warming centers open. For some, it’s when overnight temperatures are expected to drop below 40 degrees. For the city of Atlanta it’s when forecasts predict 35 degrees or lower, lasting at least five hours at night. Frigid days or cold with precipitation might also prompt the opening of the city’s center.
When the spots do open, some people rush for an oasis out of the cold.
At a warming station set up in the activity center at Gwinnett County’s Shorty Howell Park in Duluth, 27-year-old Derek Montes kept uttering the word “lucky.”
He said he sleeps in a warming station whenever he can. But on an earlier night, without that option, he slept against the wall of a store and used a wood board to block the wind. Still, he said, he’s sometimes lucky enough to catch a little sleep in a late-night laundry mat.
Or, if he has enough money to buy a cheeseburger, maybe visit an all-night McDonald’s for an hour and a half. “Some people are nice,” he said. Just don’t overstay your welcome.
“You got to keep moving,” he said.
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