There are certain things Minnesotans should be good at: making a hotdish, attending the State Fair, plowing snow, wetting a fishing line, following road construction detour instructions, and complaining about the Vikings if they screw up in the playoffs.
These are givens and I am sure people can add their own inalienable truths. You live in Minnesota and you understand these things.
What Minnesotans need to not only be good at, but excel at, is keeping people warm, especially the homeless. We should be number 1 in the world rankings. Last week, in the middle of the week, the wind was howling from the northwest, with gusts of up to 80 kilometers per hour, causing temperatures to drop below zero. Tough day to be outside, not to mention in the dark. This was Wednesday and we had a winter wind about once or twice a year that bent the trees, rattled the gutters and made creaking, ghostly sounds in the chimney flues and vents. And that was in a house with a working oven.
Outside was not suitable for man or drug addict.
Ramsey County has operated several warming centers, at the Newell Park Building, at the Phalen Activity Center and at the Union Gospel Mission. Union Gospel Mission was open until the 9pm curfew.
Since no one from the Ramsey County Shelter and Diversion team told me otherwise, Newell and Phalen were closed.
Closed.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher apparently knew the shelters were closed and sent vans to the known pathetically inadequate camps in St. Paul and took people to the County Law Enforcement Center.
“We had 90 people,” Fletcher said, “mostly men, but also a dog and a cat.”
There might have been 91 people there, but one of the vans took a detour to the hospital with a man terribly affected, by his health, by life, by the cold, who did not survive and died of a heart attack.
Repeated calls to the Ramsey County Winter Warming Space office – “open every evening from 9:30 PM to 6:30 AM through February 28” – resulted in us being put on hold and told all lines were in use . That’s understandable. It’s cold and I certainly can’t be the only one calling.
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There is speculation from people who know such things that city attorneys and county attorneys are about to finalize an agreement or policy or whatever and that the shelters will open later this month. The wheels of government are also jammed by lawyers. It’s probably not as simple as going outside and unlocking the door.
What this probably concerns are questions about liability and what documents are needed to help people in the event of an emergency. Or it may be that agreements are made with private suppliers. Taxpayers, who often wonder what they’ll get for their exorbitant taxes, may wonder if the fine print couldn’t have been settled in, say, July.
Later this month? If so, something has been forgotten. This is Minnesota. December is rarely sultry. And we excel at staying warm, or we should.
