White Plains CitizeNetReporter - City Will Vote to Keep Warming Shelters Open Another Month.

WPCNR THE HOMELESS NEWS. March 29, 2008: The Common Council will meet Monday morning at 8 A.M. to vote on two resolutions allowing Open Arms Shelter and Samaritan House to continue to house an excess number of homeless persons, who choose not to enter into the county Department of Social Services System, for another month.

In October and November city ministers attempted to house the population of homeless men and women who refuse to sign up with the county homeless system and follow its guidelines, in local churches, and protested the county edict not to provide them with cots, but allow them only to sleep in chairs. The political back and forth between the City of White Plains and the County resulted in the county agreeing to expand the capacity of the 88 West Post Open Arms shelter by 19 beds, and the shelter for women, Samaritan House, by a smaller amount. (Open Arms has according to reports been housing as many as 25 additional homeless persons on very cold nights.) Originally this expansion of the local shelters was only to last to April. However, this legislation has been introduced to keep the shelters serving at the high capacity through April 30. Neither Mayor Joseph Delfino nor Paul Wood, city Executive Officer, were available Friday afternoon to comment on the legislation, whether it would continue beyond April 30 if weather continued cold, or whether this housing would continue on a monthly basis. As of 1 A.M. in White Plains on Saturday morning the temperature outside the WPCNR Newsroom is 39 damp WPCNR degrees.


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