Officials: Saratoga Springs shelter will be open soon

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

Mike Finocchi of Shelters of Saratoga and Neysha Byrd of Soul Saving Station church outside the church, which will house Saratoga Springs' Code Blue program this winter.

The city’s new emergency homeless shelter at Soul Saving Station for Every Nation church on Henry Street will be ready to open Nov. 1, officials said Wednesday.

Mayor Joanne Yepsen, Shelters of Saratoga and church leaders announced that the basement of the church, which can hold up to 35 cots, will be the city’s Code Blue shelter this winter, open when nighttime temperatures are below 32 degrees or up to a foot of snow is anticipated.

“Code Blue fulfills an unmet need for homeless people to have shelter,” Yepsen said. “This is not to be mistaken for the drunks on the street. These are people who have nowhere else to go.”

The new location is at 62 Henry St., at the corner of Caroline Street. It was needed after the Salvation Army decided it couldn’t continue to host the shelter program at its Woodlawn Avenue building, as it has the last two winters, prompting a search over this summer for a new location.

“We got a search committee together and started looking for places that had room, and this (church) was on the list,” said Michael Finocchi, executive director of Shelters of Saratoga, which manages the Code Blue program and has a shelter for people who are trying to improve their lives.

The church already sponsors the Mother Susan Anderson shelter, which since the 1980s has provided a shelter for homeless women and children.

“We’ve been working with the homeless for nearly 30 years, so we were honored to be asked to host Code Blue,” said Neysha Byrd, the wife of Pastor Arnold Byrd. “We look forward to many years of partnership.”

The church basement, which has a kitchen and bathrooms, should be able to host about the same number of people as Code Blue averaged last winter, 34. But a second room could be used to bring the total number of beds up to 50, Finocchi said.

A daily breakfast and showers will still be available to the homeless at the Salvation Army building.

Last winter, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order requiring that communities provide emergency shelter when temperatures are below 32 degrees, and that contributed to Code Blue being open for 80 nights. Finocchi said he expects the governor to issue a similar order for this coming winter.

“I can’t thank you enough. This takes a lot of pressure off people,” Finocchi told Byrd during a press conference to announce the arrangement. Shelters of Saratoga will pay the church an undisclosed amount based on the number of people who use Code Blue.

Over the last two years, Finocchi said 24 people who came to Code Blue have been shifted to the Shelters of Saratoga program. “That’s a huge number of people. Those are people we wouldn’t have reached before,” Finocchi said.

The city’s Code Blue program was started at the end of 2013, after homeless woman Nancy Pitts died of exposure while sleeping outside. It was located at St. Peter’s school the first year, and at the Salvation Army for the last two years.

Finocchi said the long-term goal is to establish a Code Blue building that could also serve as a permanent drop-in center for the homeless.

Yepsen noted that Code Blue is run without any city funding. Private donations pay for it, restaurants in the city donate meals, and most of the staffing is by volunteers.

The shelter will be open on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day regardless of the weather, as it was last winter. “Nobody should be alone on the holidays,” Finocchi said.

Reach Gazette reporter Stephen Williams at 395-3086, [email protected] or @gazettesteve on Twitter.