Ruth Palapa and Josh Rotkin on patrol in Midtown, offering aid to a woman on Fifth Avenue.
On a wind-whipped Wednesday night as the temperature plunged below freezing, two social workers set out in a van to find him, the first of 10 homeless people scattered across Midtown Manhattan they would look for that night.
On nights when the wind chill dips to 20 degrees, the city’s Department of Homeless Services declares a Level 2 “Code Blue.” Starting at 8 p.m., its outreach teams divide the city into zones and drive around in vans, armed with lists of the most vulnerable homeless people. They visit, or try to visit, each person every two hours, all night long.
The outreach workers try to persuade the homeless to climb in the van to be taken to a shelter. Only a small fraction say yes.
The teams’ real mission, a city official said, is “death prevention.”
James Unknown was spotted just before 9 p.m. “There he is — over on the right,” said Ruth Palapa, 41, a social worker who rode shotgun. She looked out at a hunched figure in a puffy dark green coat and dirty sneakers, sitting on a grate in front of a pharmacy on East 57th Street, right where the list said he would probably be.
Josh Rotkin, 31, who was at the wheel, pulled over, and they jumped out.
“Hi, James,” Ms. Palapa called out. “How you doing tonight? You look cold.”
He peered at her through dark aviator glasses.
“I’m cold,” he said politely. “What specifically do you want?”
He declined her offer of a ride to a shelter, saying he would be fine where he was. “We’ll be back to check on you in two hours, James,” Ms. Palapa said.
“O.K., see you then,” he said.
The social workers do not waste time. They have a schedule and a list of people to see. Their typewritten charts reveal scraps of identities: Nini, a white female, 60s, gray hair, usually appears with bags, fleece blanket and umbrella. Frail. A Mexican male, 30s, slight beard. Tooth problems. Army jacket. Shopping bags full of bottles.
The teams almost always find people not on their list. It happened on Wednesday night, just past 9, when the van was shooting down Fifth Avenue and skidded to a stop in front of the Harry Winston store.
A petite black woman was curled up on the sidewalk, steps away from the store’s door, an empty Patsy’s Pizza box at her feet. She was wrapped in a paper-thin gray sheet, wearing socks and furry black slippers with pink bows. She trembled from the cold.
“I’m O.K.,” she insisted. She said she had been homeless “off and on.” “I just walked from Sixth Avenue,” she said.
After whispering quietly, the workers decided that she was disoriented and susceptible to frostbite or hypothermia. One of them called 911. But before the ambulance could arrive, the woman ran off toward Sixth Avenue.
“We lost her,” Ms. Palapa said, after a brief pursuit. They climbed back into the van.
The Homeless Services Department has focused its Code Blue street outreach on the most vulnerable homeless people: alcoholics, anyone over 60 and those with a previous cold-weather ailment, like frostbite, amputated toes or hospitalization for hypothermia. Officials say they have successfully placed more than 1,800 chronically homeless people from the street into housing since 2007, when the outreach system was revamped.
Despite their efforts, some homeless people are killed by the cold each year in New York. Last winter, four died this way. Yet the streets of New York are populated by far fewer homeless people than in the 1980s and 90s. City officials say there are about 2,300 people on the streets, according to a yearly count performed on a cold night in January. Advocates for the homeless say there are many more.
These days, the homeless are unlikely to camp out in parks, which are tightly patrolled. (Two sweeps of Bryant Park and Madison Square Park on Wednesday for three homeless people on the list yielded nothing.)
They are more likely to be found on sidewalks, under scaffolding, in subway stations and on the steps of churches, whose administrators rarely shoo them away.
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