While temperatures are starting to warm up as spring approaches, there are still some cold days in the forecast. When it dips below freezing, Code Blue shelters open their doors to give people a warm place to sleep for the night. One of those is in Ithaca.

A church nearby is helping to feed the community by making meals for people staying at the shelter.

Sticking to a strict recipe of one slice of cheese and two slices of ham, Glenn Withiam helps make sandwiches for people staying at Ithaca’s Code Blue shelter.

“I look at something like this and say, 'well, you know, if I don't do it, who's going to do it?' Instead of sitting there and complaining, go and do something,” Withiam said. “I don't judge about how they got where they are. That's not the point. The point is to make sure that they get fed. And this is something that, honestly, is pretty easy to do. Even for someone like me who has no kitchen skills whatsoever."

What You Need To Know

  • Tompkins County supports unhoused people by offering a Code Blue shelter in Ithaca on nights when the temperature dips below freezing

  • Some organizations are helping be preparing bagged and sit-down style meals for people staying at the Code Blue shelter

  • The county administrator says they serve an average of 120 unhoused people a day

Lansing United Methodist Church has been helping to prepare both bagged and sit-down meals.

“I have found that any time that we give back, it comes back tenfold to us, too. So it's a blessing to others, but it's a blessing back to us,” said volunteer Kate Decker.

While the temporary Code Blue shelter downtown is only open when it's freezing outside, the county is working on a year-round support for people without homes. In the fall, a new homeless shelter to be built on Cherry Street was announced.

“It's a challenge. I think there is a huge number of people in the county that require that support, and our ability to respond to that need is critical. So we all have sleepless nights over that,” said Tompkins County Administrator Korsah Akumfi.

The county administrator says they serve an average of 120 unhoused people a day. He says sometimes it can go over 200, but is rarely fewer than 100.

"So it is a significant problem that we need to confront. We need to do it. And we are spending a lot of money in trying to firefight it at this point,” said Akumfi.

He adds that because they don’t have a homeless shelter, they rely on sending people to hotels.

“One of the key problems that we deal with is that we don't have control over the hotel. So, if an individual is kicked out of the hotel, sometimes we struggle to find a space and we have to send that out of the county, and we are trying to resolve those problems by having a facility in place that will we will have a degree of control over,” said Akumfi.

The location for the Code Blue shelter is temporary, and the county will soon need to search for another location for that cold weather service, as the current spot will eventually be part of a new county administrative building. In the meantime, community members lend a hand to help each other.

“I mean, basically we have people who are living here and we should see what we can do to help them if need be,” said Withiam.

In the Capital Region, Saratoga County recently purchased a permanent Code Blue shelter for $3 million.