GREENFIELD — Policy changes and actions that the city could roll out to address an emergency weather situation are still being considered by City Council President Karen “Rudy” Renaud and the Human Rights Commission.
Renaud said she wants Greenfield to have a similar group to what the city of Springfield just formed, a Cold Weather Task Force.
A “freeze policy” has been proposed bythe commission and Renaud has suggested an ordinance governing a situation like this might be apt.
“We need a permanent solution that everybody knows, so it’s not a makeshift website,” Renaud said, who had volunteered her personal website as a landing space for all information on what to do in this extreme weather. “It’s like we’re cobbling stuff together.”
The most often cited hurdle to setting up shetlers is buildingand safety codes, like having a proper sprinkler system. Greenfield Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Robert Strahan said at a public forum Monday that these codes complicate opening up spaces like the community center, high school, or church to become a designated shelter space.
Renaud said she believes the city is moving further toward having more than just the one at 60 Wells St. run by ServiceNet. Some members of the community who have gone through the shelter system have said that they or people they know don’t want to go to that shelter because of associated trauma with the space itself or a lack of trust in the institution of the social service agency helping them.
“I know we’re moving in that direction, but we’re not there just yet,” Renaud said.
Other groups are looking to address this issue through policy that is unlikely to be enacted anytime this winter, especially if it were to require potential zoning changes or other elements that could trigger a public hearing.
Human Rights Commission Chairman Lewis Metaxas said he hopes the council will reconsider a freeze plan policy the commission has proposed. The council unanimously approved it last year, but the mayor vetoed it, saying it overstepped legal boundaries.
“I don’t see why we can’t collaborate to effectuate more shelter space,” Metaxas said.
Metaxas said he sees it as the government’s responsibility to provide sufficient shelter in extreme weather conditions.
“My personal opinion, and I think the unanimous opinion of the commission, is that it can be done,” Metaxas said, “and the irony for me is I think it can be done rather easily.”
He said if city officials recognize the commission’s freeze plan policy, he would be bring it back to the commission to study potential costs.
“If we’re a caring community, which we represent ourselves to be, I think this is the number one place to start,” Metaxas said.
Commission’s Vice Chair Sarah Ahern had separately presented the idea of adopting a “Code Blue” policy that the city could enact that would override building codes, allowing it to shelter those who need it without any significant complications.
The talked about Code Blue policy though is not something that is used in Massachusetts, as some thought.
Ahern said she sees this as a public health concern and therefore should be treated as such.
In Boston, which has been mentioned as a model, there is a multi-pronged approach to sheltering in extreme cold, including using the city’s Office of Public Health Preparedness at the Boston Public Health Commission. Unlike Greenfield, Boston relies not only on private-run shelters, but also on public ones it funds.
In extreme weather, the shelters work together to ensure anyone who needs shelter will be able to get it, Director of Communications for the Boston Public Health Commission Robert Goldstein said.
“It starts with educating everyone in the community with the resources they have available,” Goldstein said. The goal is for citizens to be aware to call the police when seeing someone in need of shelter, and then for dispatchers to know the appropriate channels to take to make sure the person in need gets the assistance, he said.
It is Mayor Marty Walsh’s goal to end chronic homelessness in Boston by 2020, Goldstein said.
Renaud said it may be more appropriate to look toward a city more comparable to Greenfield on how to best approach the situation.
“Using Northampton as a model is probably more helpful,” Renaud said.
At the forum Monday, Community Action Pioneer Valley Executive Director Clare Higgins, the former mayor of Northampton, delivered what amounted to a speech on the needs of this community and addressing homelessness.
She said it’s important to focus on the continuum of care for people, particularly those in most need, to make sure that the likelihood of them falling through the cracks in periods of transition for them is limited.
Issues of homelessness can highlight gaps in more permanent housing, she said, which are all questions that communities are working toward identifying and answering.
With the homeless encampment on the Greenfield Common this summer, the questions of affordable housing in the community and the deaths of Clayton Aaron Wheeler and Kathleen Grady in a homeless encampment this past week, these questions are now coming to the forefront in Greenfield, she said.
“I also want to say other communities are ahead of Greenfield,” Higgins said. “Maybe because it wasn’t as pronounced, I don’t know why, but now we’re up at it.”
You can reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264