WEBVTT 00:00:00.226 --> 00:00:05.534 - Welcome, everyone. We might have a few stragglers coming in who registered but aren't here yet, but 00:00:05.534 --> 00:00:07.710 - we're going to go ahead and get started. 00:00:07.842 --> 00:00:14.526 - I'm excited to see you all. We have not had an in-person event for a while, so thank you for coming. 00:00:14.526 --> 00:00:21.210 - This is really good to see a lot of familiar faces, but also some new folks as well. I'm Mary Morgan 00:00:21.210 --> 00:00:27.828 - with Heading Home of South Central Indiana. We periodically hold these kinds of trainings on issues 00:00:27.828 --> 00:00:33.982 - that affect or are useful for different agencies and organizations throughout the community. 00:00:34.146 --> 00:00:42.121 - We are going to be focusing on our 2025-26 winter contingency plan, which many of you were involved 00:00:42.121 --> 00:00:45.630 - in putting together. So thank you for that. 00:00:45.762 --> 00:00:52.610 - But before we get to that piece of our program, we are excited to have Ashton Jacobs here today. He 00:00:52.610 --> 00:00:59.664 - is a nurse practitioner with Health Net's Homeless Initiative Program, and he is going to go over some 00:00:59.664 --> 00:01:06.238 - information about how to take care of people in severe winter weather. So let's welcome Ashton. 00:01:18.850 --> 00:01:25.909 - I've done in like 10 years so you know give me some grace here. So like I said my name is Ashton. I 00:01:25.909 --> 00:01:32.968 - am a nurse practitioner with the homeless initiative program here in town. Myself and my colleagues 00:01:32.968 --> 00:01:40.028 - we do street medicine so our clinic is whatever we carry around with us. We go to homeless shelters 00:01:40.028 --> 00:01:47.087 - a lot of times we're at Wheeler Mission. I do some work at permanent supportive housing at Crawford 00:01:47.087 --> 00:01:47.934 - Apartments. 00:01:48.546 --> 00:01:55.512 - but then we also try our best to get out to wherever people are. We're pretty familiar with the encampments 00:01:55.512 --> 00:02:02.348 - by the beeline and Switchyard Park, so on and so forth. So I was asked to put together this presentation, 00:02:02.348 --> 00:02:08.862 - and I wasn't exactly sure about the nature and the composition of my audience, but it is basically a 00:02:08.862 --> 00:02:15.505 - primer on the basics and the underpinnings of what to do when it's cold as far as protecting the human 00:02:15.505 --> 00:02:17.182 - body and human life goes. 00:02:17.794 --> 00:02:23.957 - So without further ado, cold weather injuries, a serious topic here. And we're going to start with a 00:02:23.957 --> 00:02:30.243 - reference to my favorite film, or one of my favorite films of my childhood, The Matrix. If you recall, 00:02:30.243 --> 00:02:34.270 - in The Matrix, humans were turned into batteries to power robots. 00:02:34.370 --> 00:02:40.724 - which is a pretty outlandish idea. It's also horribly wrong because that's like the most inefficient 00:02:40.724 --> 00:02:47.203 - way that you could generate power. That being said, there is some, there's a modicum of truth in this. 00:02:47.203 --> 00:02:53.745 - We do generate a fair amount of thermal output and that's gonna be really important as we move forward. 00:02:53.745 --> 00:03:00.225 - Either way, it's a super cool film. If you haven't seen it, what are you doing? Some nerdy stuff here. 00:03:00.225 --> 00:03:02.238 - This is basically some of this, 00:03:02.562 --> 00:03:09.572 - I want to kind of explain this because my opinion, if you understand some of the fundamental concepts 00:03:09.572 --> 00:03:13.214 - associated with thermoregulation and thermodynamics, 00:03:13.314 --> 00:03:19.423 - it better helps you understand hedge cases. You might not remember all the rules, but if you remember 00:03:19.423 --> 00:03:25.473 - the concepts, you can apply them to help your clients, your patients out. So that formula you see in 00:03:25.473 --> 00:03:31.582 - the top of the screen, that is the actual formula for determining homeostatic thermoregulation in the 00:03:31.582 --> 00:03:36.254 - human body. I don't think any of us will be applying that, myself especially. 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:42.400 - But it just goes to show how complicated it is, the movement of all the different energies that move 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:48.132 - around your body. But the big rule of thumb here is that heat will always move from a hot system to 00:03:48.132 --> 00:03:53.979 - a cold system. And it does this from a physics perspective in three different ways. Conduction, which 00:03:53.979 --> 00:03:54.782 - is your hand. 00:03:54.978 --> 00:04:01.023 - touches something solid, and the heat from your hand transfers to whatever object is there. Or if the 00:04:01.023 --> 00:04:06.950 - object is hot, it transfers to your hand. You touch a hot pot in a stove, notice how fast that heat 00:04:06.950 --> 00:04:13.173 - transfers. It is almost immediate, right? So conduction is one of the fastest ways that you can transfer 00:04:13.173 --> 00:04:15.070 - heat from a hot to a cold area. 00:04:15.234 --> 00:04:21.810 - Convection is the other one. Convection is really conduction with extra steps in my mind. Convection 00:04:21.810 --> 00:04:28.712 - is when you have a heat, you have like a wind moving air through a system or you have water moving around 00:04:28.712 --> 00:04:35.549 - a system and that is constantly pulling away heat from an area. Depending on if it's a liquid convection 00:04:35.549 --> 00:04:41.214 - or if it is a air convection, that can be like moderate to slow heat loss in that way. 00:04:41.442 --> 00:04:47.200 - And then radiation is the one that we really can't do a whole lot about. We are always radiating heat. 00:04:47.200 --> 00:04:52.901 - When you think radiant heat, think about a coal in a fire. It's barely putting off any light. But you 00:04:52.901 --> 00:04:58.939 - put your hand over it, and you can still feel the warmth coming off of it. That is an example of radiation. 00:04:58.939 --> 00:05:04.584 - And then for human body, there is evaporation, which is not technically, from a physics perspective, 00:05:04.584 --> 00:05:10.398 - a way that heat is transferred. But it is vitally important when you understand human thermoregulation. 00:05:11.138 --> 00:05:18.313 - Another kind of important underpinning is the square cube law. The idea with that is that the more volume 00:05:18.313 --> 00:05:25.352 - someone has, proportionally the less surface area they have. So surface area is the area that interacts 00:05:25.352 --> 00:05:32.256 - with the environment around you. Things like fingers, nose, ears, these are areas with low volume but 00:05:32.256 --> 00:05:38.686 - high surface area. You're gonna change, exchange heat very quickly in that, whereas areas with 00:05:38.850 --> 00:05:44.829 - high volume low surface area, your core, your upper legs, these are areas that can generate heat and 00:05:44.829 --> 00:05:51.046 - preserve it much better. So that's kind of an important underpinning to consider as well. Like if you're 00:05:51.046 --> 00:05:57.440 - cold, what do you do? You tuck into a ball. You are effectively decreasing your surface area and increasing 00:05:57.440 --> 00:05:59.038 - your volume by doing that. 00:05:59.234 --> 00:06:05.272 - The final one is basal metabolic rate. A lot of things that people forget in the cold is that your nutrition, 00:06:05.272 --> 00:06:10.871 - in terms of just raw calories, is one of the most important things. When you shiver, you can increase 00:06:10.871 --> 00:06:16.580 - your basal metabolic rate by up to fivefold. Now that's probably not sustainable long term, but it just 00:06:16.580 --> 00:06:22.344 - goes to show that you can increase greatly your thermal output. If you can't sustain that with calories, 00:06:22.344 --> 00:06:28.382 - there's no way you're going to sustain that kind of thermal output either. So nutrition is vitally important. 00:06:29.762 --> 00:06:36.799 - So these are some of the important factors. I've discussed a lot of these already. Calories, keeping 00:06:36.799 --> 00:06:44.254 - them well fed is super important. And honestly, this is where things like fat, which have a lot of caloric 00:06:44.254 --> 00:06:50.942 - value for low weight, is really important. Keeping dry, we talked about conduction, convection. 00:06:51.170 --> 00:06:57.299 - Once you have water involved, the heat transfers can increase up to 25-fold. So you will lose heat a 00:06:57.299 --> 00:07:03.914 - lot faster when wet. Layers, that's really important. And we'll get to that more in a little bit. Hydration, 00:07:03.914 --> 00:07:10.043 - we often forget that hydration is involved with just about every metabolic process in your body. And 00:07:10.043 --> 00:07:16.232 - so people are often deluded into not drinking as much, oh, because the water is cold. Yes, but if you 00:07:16.232 --> 00:07:19.934 - don't stay well hydrated, you're in for a bad time. Alcohol. 00:07:20.322 --> 00:07:25.985 - Also nicotine, these are both substances a lot of our clients use. Nicotine is going to be a tough one 00:07:25.985 --> 00:07:31.648 - because it actually causes your veins and arteries to constrict on the periphery. So if you're already 00:07:31.648 --> 00:07:37.256 - having reduced blood flow to your hand and you're smoking a cigarette, you're making it worse. By the 00:07:37.256 --> 00:07:43.029 - same token, alcohol is a vasodilator. It will cause your blood vessels to expand. And so while you might 00:07:43.029 --> 00:07:45.118 - feel great and warm for a little bit, 00:07:45.282 --> 00:07:50.637 - If anyone knows the story of the baker who got drunk on the Titanic and survived in the water because 00:07:50.637 --> 00:07:56.044 - he was drunk as a skunk, it's a bit of a gambit, right? You will lose your core temperature incredibly 00:07:56.044 --> 00:08:01.346 - fast, but you'll feel pretty good for a while. So those are both substances a lot of our clients use 00:08:01.346 --> 00:08:06.701 - that can be difficult. And then ground insulation is a huge important factor. Remember, conduction is 00:08:06.701 --> 00:08:11.006 - the fastest way to lose heat many times. And then wind, trying to avoid the wind. 00:08:11.106 --> 00:08:17.924 - I spent like 30 minutes trying to make up an acronym for all of these together. The best I could come 00:08:17.924 --> 00:08:24.608 - up was Caiklin. But that's really stretching for it. So if anyone has an idea for a better acronym, 00:08:24.608 --> 00:08:31.827 - please reach out to me. I may have to do one of these presentations later. And if so, I feel like Caiklin's 00:08:31.827 --> 00:08:38.846 - kind of lame. But it's a nice little acronym. Might help you remember it. Calories, air, aqua, keep dry. 00:08:38.946 --> 00:08:45.949 - which is a fancy way of saying alcohol, layers, yard insulation, ground insulation, a bit of a stretch, 00:08:45.949 --> 00:08:52.684 - and nicotine. So things that modify the air temperature. You will always hear, oh, it's going to be 00:08:52.684 --> 00:08:56.926 - 25 degrees today, sunny, with a chance of, you know, whatever. 00:08:57.506 --> 00:09:03.697 - Whether things that can modify weather so the effective temperature that your body is interfacing with 00:09:03.697 --> 00:09:09.768 - is actually lower than the bulb temperature as it stands. Wet is probably the most concerning one. I 00:09:09.768 --> 00:09:15.658 - tell my boys who are six and three, it is one thing to be cold. It is another to be cold and wet. 00:09:15.658 --> 00:09:21.789 - Like I said, 25 increased thermal loss when you are soaking wet. The risk of hypothermia goes all the 00:09:21.789 --> 00:09:26.718 - way up to 60 degrees ambient temperature when you're wet, which is not that cold. 00:09:26.882 --> 00:09:32.546 - But if you're dry, you can kind of hold out up to 40 degrees. Wind is another one. It's kind of got 00:09:32.546 --> 00:09:38.607 - a weird curve. If it's a very low wind speed, it really doesn't do that whole lot, like 30 degrees because 00:09:38.607 --> 00:09:44.385 - it's 27 degrees Fahrenheit with five mile an hour winds. But if you go up just a little bit to 10, it 00:09:44.385 --> 00:09:50.219 - goes down to 16 degrees effective temperature. And it peaks out at about 40. Once you're past 40 miles 00:09:50.219 --> 00:09:53.278 - an hour, it really doesn't make a lick of difference. 00:09:53.570 --> 00:10:01.514 - I really hope we got bigger problems if we have 40 mile per hour winds sustained here in town. So. There 00:10:01.514 --> 00:10:09.306 - are a lot of medical terms regarding cold weather injuries but I'm going to kind of brush over the big 00:10:09.306 --> 00:10:17.250 - ones. But really you can divide them into two categories freezing and non freezing injuries. Hypothermia 00:10:17.250 --> 00:10:23.454 - is basically when the body loses all of its energy all of its thermal regulation. 00:10:24.002 --> 00:10:30.212 - globally, across the entire body. Frostbite, which we'll talk about in a bit, that's when it's more 00:10:30.212 --> 00:10:36.422 - isolated to a specific area. Hypothermia basically starts officially when the core body temperature 00:10:36.422 --> 00:10:37.726 - is dropping below 97 00:10:37.858 --> 00:10:44.270 - 97 degrees Fahrenheit. However, there are three stages to it, and I forget exactly the cutoffs for each 00:10:44.270 --> 00:10:50.683 - one, but it's kind of a spectrum of illness. In mild hypothermia, it's very vague, nonspecific. They'll 00:10:50.683 --> 00:10:57.280 - be hungry, a little bit irritable, maybe not quite as sharp as they normally are. They could be shivering, 00:10:57.280 --> 00:11:03.816 - right? You expect to be shivering. And the two I would like to point out is shivering and fast breathing. 00:11:03.816 --> 00:11:07.824 - In mild hypothermia, the person still has good thermoregulation. 00:11:07.824 --> 00:11:13.649 - is fighting back. So they're breathing faster because they're increasing their metabolism and they're 00:11:13.649 --> 00:11:19.588 - shivering because they're trying to increase how much heat they're outputting. So what do you do? Well, 00:11:19.588 --> 00:11:25.299 - this is a great comic that I think accurately demonstrates it. Bill Watterson, please don't sue me. 00:11:25.299 --> 00:11:31.182 - This is from Calvin and Homs, if ever you remember, one of the greatest comic books ever made. And the 00:11:31.182 --> 00:11:34.494 - idea here, it's grandma treatment, right? Keep them warm. 00:11:35.202 --> 00:11:40.800 - Get them next to an area of warmth. Keep them dry. Give them something with a lot of calories, like 00:11:40.800 --> 00:11:46.621 - the peanut butter crackers and the hot chocolate that Calvin is getting here in this comic strip. These 00:11:46.621 --> 00:11:52.499 - are all things that kind of help someone get warm in a mild hypothermic state. And that's pretty quickly 00:11:52.499 --> 00:11:58.097 - reversible. But it does take a lot of energy if you can even get more nerdy and talk about specific 00:11:58.097 --> 00:12:04.254 - heat of water. To raise a small amount of water's temperature takes a ton of energy. And we are mostly water. 00:12:04.642 --> 00:12:11.056 - If it is anything lower than mild hypothermia we are now in the area where you should not be intervening 00:12:11.056 --> 00:12:17.654 - at all. This is now getting into like pretty serious medical conditions. If you get to moderate hypothermia 00:12:17.654 --> 00:12:23.762 - or even severe hypothermia it has a 40 percent plus mortality rate. And so this is beyond something 00:12:23.762 --> 00:12:26.206 - you can treat on the street and frankly 00:12:26.850 --> 00:12:32.094 - I mean, at this point, they're going to be lethargic. They're not going to be thinking well. 00:12:32.094 --> 00:12:37.733 - And if they say, no, I don't want to go to the hospital, I would still call 911. It's arguable that 00:12:37.733 --> 00:12:43.484 - they do not have capacity to make that determination at this point. The big thing with higher degrees 00:12:43.484 --> 00:12:49.405 - of hypothermia is that they are slowing down. In mild hypothermia, the body is still putting up a fight. 00:12:49.405 --> 00:12:55.326 - But once that starts to fail, they start to fail. And this eventually results in cardiopulmonary arrest. 00:12:55.554 --> 00:13:01.585 - the electricity in their heart basically gets all wonky and their heart will stop. So yes, if you think 00:13:01.585 --> 00:13:07.384 - that someone is beyond mild hypothermia, then you need to be getting a medical evaluation ASAP. And 00:13:07.384 --> 00:13:13.184 - you can start warming them immediately to try to mitigate it. Frostbite, like I said, this is where 00:13:13.184 --> 00:13:19.215 - the injury is more specific to an area. Hypothermia is global heat loss. Frostbite is when heat is lost 00:13:19.215 --> 00:13:25.246 - to a specific area and it freezes. And I talked about this earlier, we are about two thirds, 70% water. 00:13:25.378 --> 00:13:30.678 - Water expands when it freezes. It's one of the few substances that does that. But if it expands, it 00:13:30.678 --> 00:13:36.032 - causes traumatic damage everywhere that it freezes to. Areas with the highest surface area to volume 00:13:36.032 --> 00:13:41.438 - ratios tend to be the most affected. Like I said earlier, square cube law, your toes, fingers, hands, 00:13:41.438 --> 00:13:44.830 - nose, ears, all these places are more susceptible to frostbite. 00:13:45.794 --> 00:13:51.955 - At first, frostbite's a tricky medical diagnosis to make because there's no real imaging or cutoff for 00:13:51.955 --> 00:13:57.996 - it. It's a clinical diagnosis, which means that you just kind of have to decide it based off of your 00:13:57.996 --> 00:14:04.097 - physical examination. And it doesn't look too bad. And it won't feel too bad either. The person loses 00:14:04.097 --> 00:14:10.078 - sensation to whatever part is getting frostbitten. But the key is that something that's frostbitten 00:14:10.078 --> 00:14:15.760 - feels hard. It feels hard because it's frozen. And so it won't look too bad. Sometimes you can 00:14:15.760 --> 00:14:21.746 - get some blistering, like as the water freezes, it can shear blood vessels and cause like some bruising. 00:14:21.746 --> 00:14:27.504 - But they generally don't look too bad, just kind of this pale, slightly swollen, hard section of the 00:14:27.504 --> 00:14:33.205 - body. However, over time, the damage will become readily apparent. The most important thing I would 00:14:33.205 --> 00:14:39.077 - say with frostbite, if you ever encounter a situation where you think you're onto it, is do not rewarm 00:14:39.077 --> 00:14:42.270 - that area until you are positive that it can stay warm. 00:14:42.434 --> 00:14:48.716 - You, by going into a freeze-thaw cycle over and over again, you are actually causing more harm to the 00:14:48.716 --> 00:14:52.350 - person just by waiting it out and then warming it up once. 00:14:52.450 --> 00:14:57.827 - So if you have a shot at warming it up obviously do so but make sure you can maintain that or you have 00:14:57.827 --> 00:15:03.048 - a high degree of suspicion that you will be able to maintain that before you start doing it. If you 00:15:03.048 --> 00:15:08.425 - do decide to warm like if you're trying to warm up someone from frostbite because they won't go to the 00:15:08.425 --> 00:15:13.802 - ER or you're waiting for 911, the best way to do it if you can is kind of have tepid to warm water and 00:15:13.802 --> 00:15:19.127 - immerse the part of the body that's frostbitten into it. It will hurt like crazy because what happens 00:15:19.127 --> 00:15:22.416 - is is after the part of the body warms up it gets slammed with 00:15:22.416 --> 00:15:28.530 - all these inflammatory cascades and that's when you start seeing the destruction from frostbite. NSAIDs 00:15:28.530 --> 00:15:34.644 - work particularly well. That's things like ibuprofen if they have some on hand. But all frostbite needs 00:15:34.644 --> 00:15:40.816 - to be evaluated because within the next three to five hours as those inflammatory markers start swarming 00:15:40.816 --> 00:15:44.990 - into the area, it will start swelling, blistering, and then eventually 00:15:45.122 --> 00:15:50.487 - you will start figuring out what tissue has died and what tissue has not. You will never really know 00:15:50.487 --> 00:15:56.065 - until everything's warmed up. And you'd be surprised. Sometimes a person reclaims a lot of tissue. Other 00:15:56.065 --> 00:16:01.590 - times, they don't reclaim a whole lot at all. And then the final part is your body basically demarcates 00:16:01.590 --> 00:16:07.273 - one area. This is where it's alive. This is where it's dead. And then that's when you see the more typical 00:16:07.273 --> 00:16:10.142 - signs of frostbite. Let me use my laser pointer here. 00:16:10.754 --> 00:16:16.471 - So let's look at this one here. You can see how it's almost dry and shriveled up. That is 100% dead 00:16:16.471 --> 00:16:22.246 - tissue. That's probably not going to come back. Maybe the bone is still alive. But this is obviously 00:16:22.246 --> 00:16:28.134 - something that is mostly dead. Up here, it's a little more interesting. This is blistered. And you can 00:16:28.134 --> 00:16:33.909 - see that kind of bluish discoloration. There's some tissue necrosis going on there. But it's hard to 00:16:33.909 --> 00:16:38.654 - say how much of that finger is salvageable. I don't know how many of you have seen 00:16:39.010 --> 00:16:45.491 - I mean, I know over this last winter when I started the job in January, I've seen a lot of partial finger 00:16:45.491 --> 00:16:51.973 - amputations from frostbite. And that is why, you know, it's hard to tell. All of this needs to eventually 00:16:51.973 --> 00:16:58.209 - be evaluated by a hand surgeon. But the ER is a good place to start. What I would say, too, as far as 00:16:58.209 --> 00:17:01.022 - keeping your hands warm, a little tip is that 00:17:01.122 --> 00:17:06.271 - Gloves are better than mittens. We talked about surface area versus volume. Mittens basically create 00:17:06.271 --> 00:17:11.777 - one encapsule for the entire four fingers, whereas gloves allow surface area interface with the environment 00:17:11.777 --> 00:17:15.550 - for each digit, which is why you'll actually lose heat faster with those. 00:17:17.250 --> 00:17:22.399 - Chills Blaine, which I just call frostbite light, is a non-freezing injury. So this is where you're 00:17:22.399 --> 00:17:27.651 - kind of exposed to the cold over time. And it causes that inflammation I talked about associated with 00:17:27.651 --> 00:17:32.902 - frostbite, but it's a little bit more diffuse. It's a little bit less suspicious. But if you do think 00:17:32.902 --> 00:17:38.206 - someone may have Chills Blaine, the biggest advice I give is the same as you would with anything else. 00:17:38.206 --> 00:17:43.509 - Keep it warm, keep it dry, keep it clean, but also some reassurance that the pain goes on for a while. 00:17:43.509 --> 00:17:47.216 - Now, if you're not a medical personnel, you're not supposed to like die 00:17:47.216 --> 00:17:52.822 - but this is just good information to kind of have on hand. Many of our clients will refuse to go to 00:17:52.822 --> 00:17:58.484 - ER urgent care, or they won't, but it's just some good general intel. There is a thought that Chills 00:17:58.484 --> 00:18:04.203 - Blaine can be related to underlying inflammatory issues like lupus or autoimmune disease. I might not 00:18:04.203 --> 00:18:09.809 - mention that to most people, but there is some evidence that people with Chills Blaine tend to have 00:18:09.809 --> 00:18:14.686 - a proclivity towards this. And then the final one I want to talk about is trench foot. 00:18:15.234 --> 00:18:20.385 - Well, what was formerly known as trench foot, the technical name is immersion foot now. Everyone would 00:18:20.385 --> 00:18:25.486 - know what you're talking about with trench foot. Trench foot is, it's not specifically a cold weather 00:18:25.486 --> 00:18:30.687 - injury, but something you often see in the cold. People don't want to take off their shoes because it's 00:18:30.687 --> 00:18:35.789 - too cold to do so. The basic idea behind trench foot is that, you know how your fingers get pruned up 00:18:35.789 --> 00:18:41.040 - when you're in the bathtub too long? This is basically that on steroids. You have this kind of breakdown 00:18:41.040 --> 00:18:42.590 - of the skin, you get this big, 00:18:42.818 --> 00:18:47.598 - Basal inflammation going all over the place. It's pretty uncomfortable. The key is just to keep it clean, 00:18:47.598 --> 00:18:52.108 - keep it dry. Most of the time, that's enough to reverse it, but trench foot or immersion foot often 00:18:52.108 --> 00:18:56.978 - leaves people susceptible to more serious injuries or more illnesses, and that's why it has to be monitored 00:18:56.978 --> 00:19:01.758 - closely. That is something you will likely see in the cold, but it can happen during hot weather as well. 00:19:03.426 --> 00:19:09.160 - Keeping warm when someone's roughing it. So this is we're now switching into What's some strategies 00:19:09.160 --> 00:19:15.065 - that individuals can do who are unhoused that might help them stay warm during the winter? Tents a lot 00:19:15.065 --> 00:19:20.799 - of people push for tents They think oh it's gonna insulate me and it kind of does but more from the 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:25.214 - wind than anything else tents actually don't do a whole lot to save you from 00:19:25.602 --> 00:19:31.654 - from heat loss. However, they protect you from wetness, and they protect you from wind. And that is 00:19:31.654 --> 00:19:37.706 - where their most important factor comes into. Another thing that people often forget is that a fair 00:19:37.706 --> 00:19:43.880 - amount of heat you lose when you're sleeping is from the ground. The harder and the more metallic the 00:19:43.880 --> 00:19:47.390 - ground, the more likely it is to sap the heat out of you. 00:19:47.490 --> 00:19:54.782 - And thankfully, there is a pretty easy remedy for that, cardboard. Cardboard has an insulation factor 00:19:54.782 --> 00:20:02.218 - that's about as close to some high-end camping mattresses. If you have an inch of corrugated cardboard, 00:20:02.218 --> 00:20:09.725 - that's the equivalent, as long as it's dry. The second cardboard becomes wet. It is no longer effective. 00:20:09.725 --> 00:20:15.230 - Excuse me while I turn this off. Another thing to mention is a lot of people 00:20:15.362 --> 00:20:20.436 - Put fires out when it's cold, makes sense. It gives off a lot of radiant heat. That is generally a no-go, 00:20:20.436 --> 00:20:25.032 - especially if it's inside a tent. That is extremely dangerous. But if you do it outside a tent, 00:20:25.032 --> 00:20:30.010 - that's fine, as long as it's a well-ventilated area and it's not going to cause some sort of fire risk. 00:20:30.010 --> 00:20:34.845 - But that's something that a lot of people do. We all kind of remember people using hand sanitizer to 00:20:34.845 --> 00:20:39.679 - burn last year. That comes with a lot of risk, especially in an enclosed space. And the final thing, 00:20:39.679 --> 00:20:44.754 - I told you I'd talk about this later, layers is probably the single most important thing. A lot of times, 00:20:44.754 --> 00:20:45.328 - people want 00:20:45.328 --> 00:20:51.489 - simple clothing, they just want one big layer that holds everything in, but there's this careful balance 00:20:51.489 --> 00:20:57.533 - that you have to do when it's cold and you're doing any kind of activity. You do activity to get warm, 00:20:57.533 --> 00:21:02.110 - but if your body overheats in the slightest, it will start putting out sweat. 00:21:02.562 --> 00:21:08.507 - And sweat, when it evaporates, takes too much of your heat away. So the idea is that if you're doing 00:21:08.507 --> 00:21:14.452 - any kind of exertion, you want to be able to shed your layers to get to the point where you're right 00:21:14.452 --> 00:21:20.574 - at that nice equilibrium. Not too hot, not too cold. And then you can re-layer on as your activity goes 00:21:20.574 --> 00:21:26.755 - down. Because if you do it in just one layer and then you get really sweaty, the second you stop moving, 00:21:26.755 --> 00:21:30.110 - it's going to be a bad time. So that's some good advice. 00:21:30.274 --> 00:21:35.767 - Lots of smaller layers is better than one giant layer. And then also, we talked about the square cupola. 00:21:35.767 --> 00:21:40.999 - If someone is doing exercise to keep themselves warm, it is much better to do a squat than push-ups 00:21:40.999 --> 00:21:46.387 - or bicep curls. And that's because the idea is the heat is being generated in your core and your upper 00:21:46.387 --> 00:21:51.933 - legs. That is where it's going to be dispersed less. Your body will use blood to reroute your heat across 00:21:51.933 --> 00:21:57.217 - your body to try to keep areas perfused. But if people are moving their hands and stuff like that, a 00:21:57.217 --> 00:22:00.094 - lot of that heat is just going to be lost immediately. 00:22:02.274 --> 00:22:08.282 - Uh, rubbing? Yeah, like that, no? I mean, not a bad idea. It's friction generates some heat. And I suppose 00:22:08.282 --> 00:22:13.897 - if it's held like purposely against their body, you've basically gotten rid of all the surface area 00:22:13.897 --> 00:22:19.961 - on the front of your palm, not to the back. I mean, it's not a bad idea. But like I would say, if someone's 00:22:19.961 --> 00:22:26.025 - trying to exercise, I'd recommend squats, right? You're just going down, up, down, and up. You're involving 00:22:26.025 --> 00:22:27.710 - almost all your major muscles 00:22:27.842 --> 00:22:34.066 - And that's not gonna be lost as quickly as anywhere else But yeah, I mean do whatever you can people 00:22:34.066 --> 00:22:40.536 - will do what they do to stay warm But as a general thumb the more you can exercise your legs, especially 00:22:40.536 --> 00:22:46.944 - like the more that heat is gonna be kept in the core So what if someone is like you go out you're doing 00:22:46.944 --> 00:22:52.798 - some outreach and someone's like yeah, I got a fire inside my tent Well, don't do it keep like 00:22:52.962 --> 00:22:57.961 - encourage them not to light a fire in their tent. It's got carbon monoxide. However, there are some 00:22:57.961 --> 00:23:03.010 - little tricks and tips that you can use to help someone use a fire to warm the inside of their tent. 00:23:03.010 --> 00:23:08.109 - Probably one of my favorite ones is taking a stone, preferably a non-porous stone, because the porous 00:23:08.109 --> 00:23:13.157 - ones can have water trapped inside and explode when you heat them up. But if they're non-porous, you 00:23:13.157 --> 00:23:18.206 - can warm them up, shove it inside a sock, and then leave that inside your tent. That should disperse 00:23:18.206 --> 00:23:19.806 - heat for about two hours or so. 00:23:19.906 --> 00:23:25.580 - And that provides a fair bit of thermal regulation inside a tent. The other option is if you can get 00:23:25.580 --> 00:23:31.367 - water boiling and put inside like a metal water bottle, that also confers a lot of heat to the inside. 00:23:31.367 --> 00:23:37.098 - But if they do use a plastic bottle, they should not drink it afterwards. That's the only other thing 00:23:37.098 --> 00:23:42.772 - to think of. And then any time they heat up an object, there will be a temptation to put it directly 00:23:42.772 --> 00:23:48.222 - against their skin. That is a potential recipe for skin burns, so something to be careful about. 00:23:48.578 --> 00:23:55.188 - Okay, well, what if they say, screw that, I'm just gonna burn something inside a tent anyways, no matter 00:23:55.188 --> 00:24:01.861 - what you do. Okay, well, if they're gonna do what they do, and that's a reality for a lot of our clients, 00:24:01.861 --> 00:24:08.660 - at the very least, I thought I'd include some information about how to make it as safe as humanly possible. 00:24:08.660 --> 00:24:14.956 - I am in no way endorsing this. It is basically turning their tent into a potential death trap. That 00:24:14.956 --> 00:24:18.544 - being said, there are some ways it could be done to make 00:24:18.544 --> 00:24:25.479 - it at least somewhat safe. You'll see a picture here of a setup that I really liked as I was looking 00:24:25.479 --> 00:24:32.415 - through it. This is really cool. Basically that jar at the bottom is filled with rubbing alcohol and 00:24:32.415 --> 00:24:38.526 - it wicks up into this copper pipe near the top and the heat from the flame evaporates it 00:24:38.818 --> 00:24:44.245 - And so the air circulates underneath the loop, and then it burns out through the top. That terracotta 00:24:44.245 --> 00:24:49.725 - pot that sits over it is to collect the heat and then radiate it out slowly over time. It was a pretty 00:24:49.725 --> 00:24:55.046 - cool setup. So I mean, if they have to do it, if you come across someone doing something like this, 00:24:55.046 --> 00:25:00.526 - I'd say you are in no way obliged to enter that tent, because that is putting you at danger for carbon 00:25:00.526 --> 00:25:02.654 - monoxide poisoning, that sort of thing. 00:25:02.754 --> 00:25:08.727 - But if someone absolutely has to do it and they are hell bent on it, then I would say a setup like this 00:25:08.727 --> 00:25:14.528 - with a stable base or with a small flame that is unlikely to cause a major fire risk is the best way 00:25:14.528 --> 00:25:20.387 - to possibly do it. And also keeping good air ventilation. You want a source of air coming in from the 00:25:20.387 --> 00:25:26.131 - base of the tent and exiting out the top to create continuous airflow. I'd also remind you a lot of 00:25:26.131 --> 00:25:28.830 - our patients clients are using substances that 00:25:29.122 --> 00:25:35.149 - greatly impairs their judgment or their judgment is impaired anyways. It will be a case by case basis 00:25:35.149 --> 00:25:41.118 - on how you navigate this, but the reality is if you ever find someone burning something inside their 00:25:41.118 --> 00:25:47.263 - tent, you know, do what you can to mitigate the damage that they could potentially cause to themselves. 00:25:47.263 --> 00:25:51.518 - And that is everything I've got. Does anyone have any questions for me? 00:25:54.274 --> 00:26:02.510 - So mittens the idea that you're all your non thumb fingers are encapsulated in a single pocket is superior 00:26:02.510 --> 00:26:10.592 - because it decreases the surface area of each individual finger. I mean something's better than nothing. 00:26:10.592 --> 00:26:18.289 - And the best setups I've seen are taking gloves like wool gloves. Wool does very well even when wet 00:26:18.289 --> 00:26:24.062 - as an insulator. So wool gloves inside a mitten is probably your best bet. 00:26:24.194 --> 00:26:33.609 - Because the wool gloves can be exchanged out if they get wet. And then you can keep the actual mitten 00:26:33.609 --> 00:26:43.208 - dry. And like I said, that's important. Any other questions? All right, sweet. Well, here's my sources. 00:26:43.208 --> 00:26:53.822 - And there's my presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dash. And that was really helpful. 00:26:54.338 --> 00:27:04.030 - Talk amongst yourselves while I change to a new slide deck. Don't notice the man behind, the woman behind 00:27:04.030 --> 00:27:07.230 - the curtain. Tell a good dad joke. 00:27:27.042 --> 00:27:37.420 - That was a very quick talk amongst yourself. Sorry about that. We're just going to move right into our 00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:47.596 - 2025-26 winter contingency plan discussion. Are you with me? OK, great. We want to give props to all 00:27:47.596 --> 00:27:52.734 - of you who have been doing this for so many years. 00:27:53.314 --> 00:28:01.319 - And then especially to the Wheeler Mission crew, who at the end of last season had some meetings that 00:28:01.319 --> 00:28:09.168 - were foundational for looking at how we can improve our work related to severe weather planning. We 00:28:09.168 --> 00:28:17.016 - at Heading Home picked up that work, used that baseline, and had additional conversations with many 00:28:17.016 --> 00:28:20.862 - of you in this room and other community members. 00:28:20.962 --> 00:28:27.760 - talking about how we're doing things previously and then how we can make them better. One of the things 00:28:27.760 --> 00:28:34.296 - I wanted to do with this group to start off with is take a look back at the last season or previous 00:28:34.296 --> 00:28:40.963 - seasons and kind of reflect on what do you think worked really, really well that we should definitely 00:28:40.963 --> 00:28:48.022 - keep doing? And maybe what are some of the things that we can improve on? So these are just some questions. 00:28:48.022 --> 00:28:49.918 - Who or what do you think was 00:28:50.338 --> 00:28:58.627 - instrumental in meeting some of the winter needs last year. Just shout it out. The Church Warming Center, 00:28:58.627 --> 00:29:06.760 - the BSWERS Warming Center. I know a lot of people use that and had some interactions with that. I don't 00:29:06.760 --> 00:29:14.581 - think there is anybody here right now from BSWERS. I don't think they could make it. But we'll talk 00:29:14.581 --> 00:29:19.742 - a little bit about some changes there later in this presentation. 00:29:20.034 --> 00:29:27.463 - So Beastverse, yep. Anything else that we should just absolutely give props to? Wheeler Mission. Wheeler 00:29:27.463 --> 00:29:34.679 - Mission. I'm going to come over here, Bill, and I'm going to have you tell me why Wheeler Mission did 00:29:34.679 --> 00:29:42.178 - such a great job. Oh, it's really easy. They are the big shelter in town, and they've bent over backwards 00:29:42.178 --> 00:29:46.494 - to help folks get in and lower barriers as much as possible. 00:29:48.194 --> 00:29:56.732 - Yay, Wheeler. Yay, the Wheeler crew over here. All right. What are some of the positive outcomes that 00:29:56.732 --> 00:30:05.271 - you saw last season? Are there any examples of things that you saw as part of that winter contingency 00:30:05.271 --> 00:30:13.726 - effort last year that you'd want to give some shout outs to? Celebrate. Any individual or something? 00:30:13.726 --> 00:30:14.814 - OK, Charles. 00:30:16.098 --> 00:30:25.216 - I have to because because our friends here at Katz need to need to hear you through the microphone again. 00:30:25.216 --> 00:30:33.990 - Jamie from the county sends out emails in regards to weather changes and advisories and that has been 00:30:33.990 --> 00:30:35.710 - incredibly helpful. 00:30:38.722 --> 00:30:45.801 - Yay, Jamie. Jamie was invited, and she and her crew had some training in another community. So we did 00:30:45.801 --> 00:30:52.811 - not have her here, but we're going to get into a little bit later her new role and that department's 00:30:52.811 --> 00:30:59.752 - new role at the Monroe County Emergency Management. And then what lessons did you think you learned 00:30:59.752 --> 00:31:05.374 - during the last season that we should apply this time? Are there things that you 00:31:06.370 --> 00:31:13.347 - change during the year that you feel like we need to make sure that we continue? Anything like that? 00:31:13.347 --> 00:31:20.462 - Yeah, Melissa? I think that our end, like, we had a couple days or a week or so of just severe weather 00:31:20.462 --> 00:31:27.646 - and the fact that everybody just pitched in. I think that was the biggest lesson as to how well we were 00:31:27.646 --> 00:31:34.554 - made to and how we can really kind of hit on that as well, just to make sure that nobody freezes to 00:31:34.554 --> 00:31:36.350 - death, nobody dies. Yeah. 00:31:36.578 --> 00:31:43.931 - Katz viewers. Melissa was just saying there was a period where there were a couple of weeks of really 00:31:43.931 --> 00:31:51.429 - severe weather. People really pitched in, coordinated, really worked together as a community very, very 00:31:51.429 --> 00:31:58.927 - well to make sure that nobody died. And that's our goal, right? That nobody dies or suffers from severe 00:31:58.927 --> 00:32:04.766 - injuries. All right. So let's give a round of applause for last year. Yay. Okay. 00:32:04.962 --> 00:32:13.474 - On your tables, there's a QR code. There's a QR code here to the 2025-26. Severe weather sheltering, 00:32:13.474 --> 00:32:21.901 - we used that instead of winter contingency just so that people might understand a little bit better 00:32:21.901 --> 00:32:30.918 - what that is. This is a heading home led effort with many of you involved to really put together something 00:32:30.918 --> 00:32:33.278 - that the community can see. 00:32:33.378 --> 00:32:40.077 - and that can demonstrate how coordinated we are and a few new elements that we're adding to see if we 00:32:40.077 --> 00:32:46.513 - can make it even better than last year. And of course, our objectives to prevent injury or death, 00:32:46.513 --> 00:32:53.212 - number one. So there are a lot of people that don't necessarily go into shelter. We want to make sure 00:32:53.212 --> 00:33:00.042 - that everybody has a place where they're comfortable and safe during winter weather that's very severe. 00:33:00.042 --> 00:33:02.078 - So just a general description. 00:33:02.338 --> 00:33:08.879 - This takes effect November 1st through March 31st. Obviously there are other days before and after that 00:33:08.879 --> 00:33:15.295 - period that we might need to activate but that's the general time when we put this winter contingency 00:33:15.295 --> 00:33:21.585 - plan into effect. There are some changes in the community and how we do things to make that happen. 00:33:21.585 --> 00:33:28.315 - One of the big changes this year is that Jamie Nibel and the Monroe County Emergency Management Department 00:33:28.315 --> 00:33:29.950 - is going to take the lead 00:33:30.082 --> 00:33:36.698 - in activating white flag nights. So in the past, and I think this was particularly true for BSWERS, 00:33:36.698 --> 00:33:43.380 - the faith-based shelter, everybody was kind of making their own call and using different temperature 00:33:43.380 --> 00:33:50.194 - or other criteria. And so we're giving that responsibility to Jamie. We've had some conversations with 00:33:50.194 --> 00:33:54.494 - her. We're excited about this new role that she's going to play. 00:33:54.722 --> 00:34:01.083 - So she will have access to the forecast. And as Charles mentioned you know they do that already. So 00:34:01.083 --> 00:34:07.508 - what additional step they'll do is based on these temperature and wind chill criteria. She will send 00:34:07.508 --> 00:34:14.060 - out emails to distribution lists that we will provide for her which will include all the partners that 00:34:14.060 --> 00:34:20.485 - are involved in winter contingency as well as heading home so that everybody knows that OK from this 00:34:20.485 --> 00:34:21.630 - date to this date 00:34:21.794 --> 00:34:28.522 - We expect that there will be white flag nights and we'll need to start our winter to contingency protocols. 00:34:28.522 --> 00:34:34.751 - So that is a great thing I think for our community and what we are excited about is the possibility 00:34:34.751 --> 00:34:40.980 - of talking with other counties in our region to see if their emergency management departments would 00:34:40.980 --> 00:34:47.708 - take on that same role. So we have a centralized point where everybody can look to to get that information. 00:34:47.708 --> 00:34:51.134 - And then we're going to do a partner round up. So the. 00:34:51.714 --> 00:34:57.865 - Details of all these groups are in the full winter contingency plan, which is on your table or through 00:34:57.865 --> 00:35:03.957 - the QR code online. But we really wanted to just go over. And if there are those of you that have not 00:35:03.957 --> 00:35:09.929 - met some of the people that are involved in these shelters, that you have a chance to do so now. So 00:35:09.929 --> 00:35:15.901 - I guess I'd really like to just have folks who are from some of these different agencies just raise 00:35:15.901 --> 00:35:21.694 - your hand so everybody can know who you are. I don't see anybody from New Hope here. Am I wrong? 00:35:21.794 --> 00:35:29.570 - Anybody from New Hope? No. How about Monroe County Youth Services Bureau. They are dealing with the 00:35:29.570 --> 00:35:37.423 - youngins. I don't see anybody here. I do see people from Wheeler Mission. So yay. All right. We have 00:35:37.423 --> 00:35:45.588 - folks from Beacon. I don't think they're here. Middle Way House also. I don't see them. So we miss them. 00:35:45.588 --> 00:35:47.454 - They're here in spirit. 00:35:47.714 --> 00:35:54.576 - These are the places that are operational and that will be adapting in some ways when there are white 00:35:54.576 --> 00:36:01.370 - flag nights. And then this is the BSWARE's program that we mentioned earlier, the Bloomington Severe 00:36:01.370 --> 00:36:08.164 - Weather Emergency Shelter. One of the big changes that is happening this year is that there is a new 00:36:08.164 --> 00:36:15.026 - church that's going to be involved. So last year, there were two churches, First Christian Church and 00:36:15.026 --> 00:36:17.246 - First United Methodist downtown. 00:36:17.346 --> 00:36:27.995 - And earlier this year, the congregation at First Presbyterian Church downtown also voted to join this 00:36:27.995 --> 00:36:37.182 - effort. So yeah, let's give it up for BSWARS. They need to activate, oh yeah, go ahead. 00:36:37.826 --> 00:36:47.701 - Yes. So there the fire was on the roof it was contained. And as far as I know unless things have changed 00:36:47.701 --> 00:36:53.438 - since I last talked to Caleb they're still good to go. Yeah. 00:36:53.570 --> 00:37:00.442 - They do need a little more time to activate because it's a volunteer-based group. So that's one of the 00:37:00.442 --> 00:37:07.247 - things we're going to communicate to Jamie, that we need as much time in advance. And that's a little 00:37:07.247 --> 00:37:14.186 - tricky, right, because weather changes. So we'll see how that goes. And they primarily prioritize women 00:37:14.186 --> 00:37:21.192 - and people with medical conditions, but they also take other folks as well. And then crisis intervention 00:37:21.192 --> 00:37:22.526 - and winter outreach 00:37:22.626 --> 00:37:31.553 - Shout out to our friends at Stride. Jennifer's in the back. Stride Center does offer some of emergency 00:37:31.553 --> 00:37:40.393 - overnight capability but I think that that is I'm going to ask Jennifer to speak to that a little bit 00:37:40.393 --> 00:37:49.406 - and also to the role that you play in the mobile response. Can you come up here. I told you I was going 00:37:49.406 --> 00:37:51.486 - to put you on the spot. 00:37:58.690 --> 00:38:08.194 - Hi, everybody. I didn't know I was getting the microphone. Awesome. So firstly, let's just say we did 00:38:08.194 --> 00:38:17.604 - an amazing job last winter. So let's keep it going. I'm all inspired again. But the Stride Center is 00:38:17.604 --> 00:38:27.294 - definitely here, as you all know, for 24-7, 365 walk-ins. So we greet a lot of individuals at the door. 00:38:28.130 --> 00:38:36.530 - And in the winter, come on in. I'm not gonna misrepresent that we don't reach out to our lovely folks 00:38:36.530 --> 00:38:45.259 - at Wheeler and our awesome partners at Friends Police Shelter as well. And then also the Emergency Winter 00:38:45.259 --> 00:38:51.518 - Shelter to see if there are shelter capacity for the individuals at Stride. 00:38:52.162 --> 00:39:00.795 - because we do want to reserve the space that is available at the Stride Center for individuals who cannot 00:39:00.795 --> 00:39:09.265 - access a safe space to sleep, right? So I think that's kind of where we come into play is mobile crisis 00:39:09.265 --> 00:39:17.735 - was out on the streets last year. We were definitely showing up in the nighttime hours at the emergency 00:39:17.735 --> 00:39:19.038 - winter shelter. 00:39:19.330 --> 00:39:27.048 - because our experience from what we viewed, there were still individuals that were lined up outside 00:39:27.048 --> 00:39:34.998 - of the church and there just wasn't enough room. So our team volunteered to go put them in the car and 00:39:34.998 --> 00:39:43.102 - figure out how to keep them safe with these goals in mind. We ended up sometimes having two teams of two 00:39:43.362 --> 00:39:50.060 - Going out so two cars out on the road Because we definitely wanted to keep in mind that when it's a 00:39:50.060 --> 00:39:56.759 - very cold outside We got to go fast, right? We had a great representation as well. Shout out to our 00:39:56.759 --> 00:40:03.591 - sheriff's department officers in our BPD officers because they're very familiar with first of all how 00:40:03.591 --> 00:40:10.289 - to encourage someone to get in their car as well and come to the strike center and our officers are 00:40:10.289 --> 00:40:11.294 - phenomenal and 00:40:11.490 --> 00:40:19.460 - They bring them to our front door as needed throughout the winter. So do we have beds? No, Stride doesn't 00:40:19.460 --> 00:40:27.053 - have beds, right? Because we're not licensed as a shelter. Are we going to welcome an individual who 00:40:27.053 --> 00:40:31.038 - is experiencing homelessness into the Stride Center? 00:40:31.266 --> 00:40:38.778 - Yes, we are. We're sorry we don't have a comfy bed, but we do have a warm, safe space for you. And we 00:40:38.778 --> 00:40:46.438 - also have peers in recovery and crisis specialists that will try to support you in any way that we can. 00:40:46.438 --> 00:40:54.171 - So some mornings at Stride, we did have 10 to 16 people hanging out with us. And that's OK. Stride wants 00:40:54.171 --> 00:40:58.590 - to continue to partner as a resource here in our community. 00:40:58.850 --> 00:41:06.658 - We definitely want to be available. If you all ever want to bring anybody over, go ahead and do it. 00:41:06.658 --> 00:41:14.701 - And encourage folks to seek the Stride Center or call the Stride Center and ask for Mobile to come and 00:41:14.701 --> 00:41:22.978 - pick them up anytime in the winter. We will be transparent if our teams are busy. But Mobile also swooped 00:41:22.978 --> 00:41:25.086 - into several tents outside 00:41:25.666 --> 00:41:33.918 - who just miraculously survived super cold nights for people who still chose to sleep outside at night. 00:41:33.918 --> 00:41:42.091 - And we were able to bring them to other resources or the Stride Center to warm up as well. I love our 00:41:42.091 --> 00:41:50.103 - community. We are amazing. I'm proud of all of you. And we're here for you. Thank you Jennifer. You 00:41:50.103 --> 00:41:55.070 - have a question. So I was asking about the 23 hour safe stay. 00:41:55.490 --> 00:42:04.622 - So if they were to pick someone up one night and then they're back on the streets the next night. What 00:42:04.622 --> 00:42:13.577 - is the protocol for that I guess. Did you hear that Jennifer. What is the protocol if somebody stays 00:42:13.577 --> 00:42:20.670 - the 23 hours and then comes wants to come back the next day. Welcome them back. 00:42:20.834 --> 00:42:28.273 - the next night as well. We are going to continue to encourage use of safe shelter and verify safe shelter, 00:42:28.273 --> 00:42:35.504 - so I don't wanna falsely advertise that. And we're also gonna offer a safe ride to that shelter if it's 00:42:35.504 --> 00:42:42.595 - available. I think Nicole and Patrick got used to seeing us pull up there a lot last year. All right, 00:42:42.595 --> 00:42:48.574 - great. Also wanted to give a shout out to HealthNut, the Homeless Initiative Program. 00:42:49.154 --> 00:42:56.321 - during their, the winter, I mean, they're out on the street all the time, right? But during winter weather, 00:42:56.321 --> 00:43:03.090 - they also mobilize for unsheltered individuals. And the Bloomington Fire Department Mobile Integrated 00:43:03.090 --> 00:43:09.859 - Health Unit. Woohoo. All right. This is an important piece of our communication and the services that 00:43:09.859 --> 00:43:16.894 - are provided here. Jennifer spoke a little bit about transportation. That is an ongoing challenge, right? 00:43:17.026 --> 00:43:23.438 - One of the things that happens as she mentioned is that there is somebody might show up at one place 00:43:23.438 --> 00:43:29.977 - there's not a bed available. And so how do we transport that to a place where there is a bed available 00:43:29.977 --> 00:43:36.390 - or another warm shelter. We have talked with Bloomington Transit and they have offered to do a pilot 00:43:36.390 --> 00:43:42.738 - program with us to be available if there is enough advance notice for them. So we're going to check 00:43:42.738 --> 00:43:46.992 - it out if there is a 12 hour notice they can have one of their bus 00:43:46.992 --> 00:43:54.100 - has come to the B-Swares location if we think that's where the need is going to be to transport people 00:43:54.100 --> 00:44:01.001 - to Wheeler or to Wheeler if we think that there's going to be need to transport to B-Swares. One of 00:44:01.001 --> 00:44:07.970 - the key things that we are missing is that piece of how do we find out where the available beds are. 00:44:07.970 --> 00:44:14.526 - One of the things that is exciting to me, we have an organization in town called Binary Heart. 00:44:15.042 --> 00:44:23.498 - that is exploring the development of an app that would allow us to in real time identify the number 00:44:23.498 --> 00:44:31.954 - of beds that are available. And we have Henley here is from Binary Heart. Henley do you want to say 00:44:31.954 --> 00:44:40.495 - a few words about that effort. Hi I'm Henley Wolin I'm a national board member for Binary Heart. Our 00:44:40.495 --> 00:44:44.638 - focus is on empowering people through the use of 00:44:44.802 --> 00:44:54.093 - surplus technology, but we also have an app development arm. And after talking to Mary, I thought, and 00:44:54.093 --> 00:45:03.114 - you'd share an article about some, there's a program in San Diego where somebody's developed an app 00:45:03.114 --> 00:45:10.782 - where people can look at available shelter beds and then be able to reserve a space. 00:45:11.074 --> 00:45:18.286 - in a shelter. I don't know if we're going to go that far, but I think it'd be nice if there was a central 00:45:18.286 --> 00:45:25.294 - inventory of shelter beds so all the shelter providers can look and see. So like say Wheeler is filter 00:45:25.294 --> 00:45:32.166 - capacity, but there are two beds over at Friends Place that you, instead of like having to make tons 00:45:32.166 --> 00:45:39.582 - of phone calls, you can just look and see, oh, you can go over to Friends Place and there's a space for you. 00:45:40.546 --> 00:45:48.329 - That's the idea. Thank you. Thanks, Henley. So as I said, this is in very early stages of development. 00:45:48.329 --> 00:45:56.111 - And one of the things that Henley would like to do at some point is to talk with the shelter providers 00:45:56.111 --> 00:46:04.121 - to see how that might work. But I think that that's a thing that is a really creative approach to problem 00:46:04.121 --> 00:46:07.294 - solving that I hope we can capitalize on. 00:46:10.178 --> 00:46:17.046 - We also rely on day centers and warming centers. We do not have the current list yet but we will be 00:46:17.046 --> 00:46:24.464 - updating the winter contingency plan with that information as soon as we get it. They are in fire stations. 00:46:24.464 --> 00:46:31.401 - Of course the library serves that role in some capacity and as well as day centers the Shalom Center 00:46:31.401 --> 00:46:33.118 - and the Wheeler mission. 00:46:33.314 --> 00:46:39.866 - day center. Now that is going to even in your reconstruction and renovations that's still going to be 00:46:39.866 --> 00:46:46.483 - open. OK. Awesome. And then animal care is an important piece of the puzzle. Some people don't go into 00:46:46.483 --> 00:46:49.502 - shelter because they don't want to leave their 00:46:50.242 --> 00:46:57.295 - Dear furry friends so we have several we have a couple of organizations primarily the Monroe County 00:46:57.295 --> 00:47:04.418 - Humane Association that will step in and Andrew Krebs had attended some of the meetings when we were 00:47:04.418 --> 00:47:11.752 - developing this plan so they're on board with that. The animal shelter for the city of Bloomington does 00:47:11.752 --> 00:47:16.830 - have a temporary shelter but it is shorter than the Humane Association. 00:47:17.090 --> 00:47:25.951 - And then there are some after hours assistance numbers to call. And so that brings us to general Q&A. 00:47:25.951 --> 00:47:34.899 - What I would hope to do is for you all to tell us what's missing. What do we need to pay attention to? 00:47:34.899 --> 00:47:42.110 - What are some things that you feel have been either overlooked or not highlighted? 00:47:42.210 --> 00:47:51.089 - So that we can add to this living document because we are definitely not saying this is a Document written 00:47:51.089 --> 00:47:59.386 - in stone. We need to keep learning and improving And so one of the things we hope to do here was to 00:47:59.386 --> 00:48:07.518 - get some more feedback from you all So is there anything that you have seen noticed? Yeah Hang on 00:48:10.850 --> 00:48:18.385 - Last year, we had came across an individual that went to one of the day warming centers, and that warming 00:48:18.385 --> 00:48:25.493 - center did not know they were a warming center. So yes, I feel like that might need to be addressed 00:48:25.493 --> 00:48:32.814 - at some point. Yes, indeed. OK. Do you happen to know the category of warming? Like, was it a? I don't 00:48:32.814 --> 00:48:37.790 - want to say it's too close to Shelby, but it was a firehouse. OK. OK. 00:48:37.922 --> 00:48:43.155 - Well, I think that that's really important feedback. Because one of the things that we need to do for 00:48:43.155 --> 00:48:48.645 - all of the resources that we have is make sure that they are up to date and not misleading, right? Because 00:48:48.645 --> 00:48:53.930 - the last thing you want is somebody to slog through a snowstorm to a place where they're not available 00:48:53.930 --> 00:48:59.112 - for help. Yeah, yeah. OK. That's great feedback. We will definitely keep an eye on that. I think you 00:48:59.112 --> 00:49:04.243 - and I already talked about that. I think they're updated now. They are updated? OK. I think you and 00:49:04.243 --> 00:49:06.398 - I already talked about that. Yes, we did. 00:49:06.626 --> 00:49:15.014 - And so I will update the plan. Do you know where they live? Can you send me a link? Online? Sure. OK, 00:49:15.014 --> 00:49:23.237 - that's great. And then I'll just update the plan. Fantastic. Anything else? Bill, looks like you're 00:49:23.237 --> 00:49:31.625 - thinking. No? I'm just thinking of the list of things I need to do. That's it. OK. Yeah, Bobby. Every 00:49:31.625 --> 00:49:34.750 - year we have a conference of township 00:49:38.370 --> 00:49:47.057 - Every year this man presents that look that is up in the Indy area, Noblesville and in that area. And 00:49:47.057 --> 00:49:55.573 - he has a mobile unit. It's a bus. Have we had him come down maybe to talk because he goes where the 00:49:55.573 --> 00:50:02.046 - people are. They can sleep in the bus. They have coffee. They have he keeps 00:50:03.170 --> 00:50:12.082 - like vending machines that have toothpaste and toothbrushes. So it's a mobile unit that goes where people 00:50:12.082 --> 00:50:20.826 - are staying on the streets. And we haven't had him come yet, have we? Do you have it? I have it at work 00:50:20.826 --> 00:50:29.569 - because he's also expanding. It is the most wonderful program, the way this guy has it set up. And he's 00:50:29.569 --> 00:50:30.494 - expanding. 00:50:31.586 --> 00:50:38.495 - I think offering to increase the area he covers, he wouldn't be every night, but he would rotate through 00:50:38.495 --> 00:50:45.469 - a community if they're interested in him being there. But I'll get that to you, because I think we should 00:50:45.469 --> 00:50:52.049 - have him come and talk to us, because this was his idea, because he had been homeless. This was the 00:50:52.049 --> 00:50:58.892 - solution he came up with, and he's created this just incredibly humanistic way of getting to the people 00:50:58.892 --> 00:51:00.734 - that are most needing help. 00:51:01.314 --> 00:51:08.086 - So I'll find out for you. Does this sound familiar to anybody? Anybody heard of this particular program 00:51:08.086 --> 00:51:14.793 - out of Indy? No. And for those of you who don't know, this is Bobbi Summers. She's awesome. She's with 00:51:14.793 --> 00:51:21.500 - the Richland Township Trustee's Office in the Ellitsville area. So if you could send that to me, yeah, 00:51:21.500 --> 00:51:28.142 - we can get in touch. I thought you could come and do a presentation at one of your meetings so we can 00:51:28.142 --> 00:51:30.942 - start. And then problem solve how we might 00:51:32.994 --> 00:51:42.513 - I'm all about picking brains. Thanks Bobby. Any other feedback things we should change make sure that 00:51:42.513 --> 00:51:52.031 - we are paying special attention to as we head into the winter which guys it's coming. I looked at the 00:51:52.031 --> 00:52:00.990 - calendar the other day November 1st is how many weeks away. Not too many two weeks. Oh my gosh. 00:52:04.354 --> 00:52:13.428 - Any other feedback on this plan. All right. Well what I hope you can do is after you cogitate and reflect 00:52:13.428 --> 00:52:22.160 - that if there are other changes to make that you can get in touch with us here at Heading Home. We're 00:52:22.160 --> 00:52:30.978 - housing the plan and updating it and making sure that we actually follow through on some of the things 00:52:30.978 --> 00:52:33.118 - that this plan outlines. 00:52:33.218 --> 00:52:39.965 - And so my email and phone number is here. This is a happy picture that we need to update, because we 00:52:39.965 --> 00:52:46.111 - have some new staff coming to Heading Home. And it's a good opportunity for me to introduce 00:52:46.111 --> 00:52:52.858 - Erin Reynolds-Nylund, who is new to Heading Home. She's our new Housing Solutions Director, and will 00:52:52.858 --> 00:52:59.538 - be overseeing the case managers for street outreach and diversion prevention that we're bringing on 00:52:59.538 --> 00:53:02.878 - board. So let's give it up for Erin. Yeah, right. 00:53:03.010 --> 00:53:10.286 - And of course, Tatiana Wheeler, who is my partner at Heading Home for all these many years. Did you 00:53:10.286 --> 00:53:17.561 - have another question? How do we find out when it's a white flag day? Well, if you recall, so Jamie 00:53:17.561 --> 00:53:24.982 - Nibel is going to be the one for the Monroe County Emergency Management Department who will make that 00:53:24.982 --> 00:53:30.366 - call. And we're going to give her a list of everybody who is part of that 00:53:30.754 --> 00:53:40.263 - response team. If you want to be on the list, let me know. Because really what we're focused on at this 00:53:40.263 --> 00:53:49.589 - point are all of the agencies that are partnered here. SCAP is not, but maybe it should be. And maybe 00:53:49.589 --> 00:53:53.246 - that's a, yeah, we'll talk later about. 00:53:53.954 --> 00:53:59.856 - Yeah, it's gonna be blasted out on social media as well. So that would be, but I think that that's a 00:53:59.856 --> 00:54:05.875 - good point, that people who maybe are not part of the response, but that are working with clients that 00:54:05.875 --> 00:54:11.835 - would need that information, that's a good point. So we'll be putting that distribution list together 00:54:11.835 --> 00:54:17.679 - and then sending it out to folks to get feedback on who else needs to be involved in it. All right, 00:54:17.679 --> 00:54:23.230 - good feedback, yep. Sorry I'm coming in late with this, but just one more point that I thought 00:54:23.746 --> 00:54:30.950 - might be interesting to bring up to the group at large and I could task myself with this as much as 00:54:30.950 --> 00:54:38.154 - anyone but I think this plan is great working with the resources that we have. One thing that if we 00:54:38.154 --> 00:54:45.790 - if we really wanted to get folks indoors going forward is just to explore any kind of options we can with 00:54:46.018 --> 00:54:52.055 - pets and animals. I think that's the biggest barrier right now and has been traditionally and I am that 00:54:52.055 --> 00:54:58.208 - the human the Humane Association program is such an incredible resource. But but just the the the limited 00:54:58.208 --> 00:55:04.071 - capacity is you know I mean there's only so much they can do. And I think if we could come up with a 00:55:04.071 --> 00:55:10.282 - with a long term sort of a widespread solution to that quandary we might we might see some real difference 00:55:10.282 --> 00:55:15.390 - in getting folks indoors because that's that's that I think that's the biggest barrier. 00:55:16.034 --> 00:55:24.356 - that I've observed over the years. Let me ask you this. So even with a resource of a place for their 00:55:24.356 --> 00:55:32.925 - pet to stay, their companion to stay, they might not want to be separated for it at all. So really what 00:55:32.925 --> 00:55:41.329 - our lack is is places that will accept both the humans and the animals. Yeah. Yeah. So I know Friends 00:55:41.329 --> 00:55:43.966 - Place does that. I don't think. 00:55:44.130 --> 00:55:51.348 - I don't think Wheeler does. Service animals only. Service animals only, OK. And I'm not sure about beeswars. 00:55:51.348 --> 00:55:58.368 - I think they do, but I. Yeah, OK, good. Thank you. Thank you for remembering what was on the slide better 00:55:58.368 --> 00:56:05.056 - than I did. So beeswars also does. But I think you're right, Bill. We are hearing more and more that 00:56:05.056 --> 00:56:09.758 - there are more people who are having companions. Those pets, so. Yeah. 00:56:11.970 --> 00:56:18.110 - a quandary without a solution. It just is, I think, identifying that. Identifying the quandary is the 00:56:18.110 --> 00:56:24.430 - first step, right? So thank you. All right. Any other feedback as we move into our winter weather? Yeah? 00:56:24.430 --> 00:56:30.510 - I was just going to say, making sure that the plan is shared with all community resources, and maybe 00:56:30.510 --> 00:56:36.890 - with the boundaries, Red Cross. Because I think people go to a lot of those places that they don't touch. 00:56:36.890 --> 00:56:39.358 - And so as long as they're aware of that, 00:56:45.922 --> 00:56:54.920 - That is a really good point. So making sure that the plan and the distribution list includes food pantries 00:56:54.920 --> 00:57:03.245 - and folks like SCAP and the Red Cross, Salvation Army, some of those other places, the faith-based 00:57:03.245 --> 00:57:11.991 - communities, right? I think that's a great idea. Yep. Oh, I like that too. Making a one-page flyer with 00:57:11.991 --> 00:57:15.102 - a QR code linking to the plan. Yeah. 00:57:21.954 --> 00:57:29.630 - Great idea. OK, cool. That's what this is for. Yay. Glad we're getting such great feedback. 00:57:29.630 --> 00:57:37.973 - Anything else? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry, Bobby. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, do we not just have QR codes? 00:57:37.973 --> 00:57:45.899 - Because a lot of people I work with don't have the resources for it, don't know how to use it. 00:57:45.899 --> 00:57:50.238 - They're first. Heard. Me included. OK, fair enough. 00:57:59.394 --> 00:58:07.682 - Understood. So have flyers, QR codes, the URL for a web address, but also hard copies, right? So at 00:58:07.682 --> 00:58:16.634 - your office and all these other places, just hard copies of the plan or connecting with them and suggesting 00:58:16.634 --> 00:58:25.502 - the agencies print out copies for their folks. Good suggestion. Anything else before we break for the day? 00:58:26.370 --> 00:58:32.184 - I'm sorry, I feel like I've had my back to you most of this time. All right, well, thank you again. 00:58:32.184 --> 00:58:38.114 - Please give yourselves a round of applause for the work you're doing in our community. Thank you, and 00:58:38.114 --> 00:58:39.102 - have a good day.