Guest Columnist | Stuck outside in a sweltering city

If you can't beat the heat, you might as well embrace it. That was my philosophy for signing up for Bikram yoga in the middle of Philadelphia's recent summer heat wave.

Yoga poses in 100 degree heat. Ninety minutes a day. One full week.

During lessons, radiators expel scorching air into a room that is more sauna than studio. I break out into a sweat before class even starts. And I've already dripped liters of water by the time I cover my yoga mat with a towel and try to touch my forehead to my toes. Impossible poses at impossible temperatures.

At six in the morning, the room is filled with dozens of glistening, bathing-suited bodies.

Once I leave the studio, it feels like heaven. Even if heaven is just five degrees cooler than hell.

Although I freely chose to bear the heat, others don't have the same choice.

In the streets of Philadelphia, temperatures can be just as blistering. Last week, the city issued a heat advisory warning as temperatures rose above 95 degrees for three consecutive days.

On such days, the city puts into action a plan called Code Red.

Code Red helps the city look out for the welfare of homeless residents when heat indexes begin to soar. According to David Vega, an official at Special Needs Housing, city outreach teams take to the streets.

These agencies increase their street fleet to offer the homeless emergency housing or health services. The teams also expedite emergency room transport and hand out free water.

Seven Code Reds have been issued this summer.

"Outreach teams are out there and cruising around," said Vega.

Cruising around, however, doesn't always solve the problem.

Even as a temporary bandaid, Code Red has its limits. If an outreach group finds a person in need, the most they can do is verbally encourage her to seek help.

Verbal persuasion, however, often fails.

The shelters the homeless would otherwise turn to are often not much better than the streets, according to Andrew McIlree, street outreach coordinator for the Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness.

"The shelter systems are abominable; that's why so may people don't come in," he said.

Imagine checking yourself into Ridge Avenue Shelter, where you must register as a part of the city's homeless population. Your first impression is a bad one. You're handed with a list of things you cannot do. The showers are dirty. You ask for a towel, and someone yells at you. You turn around; there goes your wallet. All the toilets are backed up. Fights break out, and security is lax.

"They're not treated like human beings. They treat the homeless like they're prisoners," McIlree said.

People of all ages and backgrounds are lumped together in the shelters. The guy snoring next to you has been on the street for the last 20 years, and the smell of his shoes just blows you away. Sleeping in the cot right next to you could be any one of the following: drug addicts, former prisoners, the mentally ill.

Even when given the choice, it's no surprise that people chose to stay on the streets when conditions are poor outside.

There they risk heat exhaustion, heat stroke or death.

But it's not as if the city's homeless have it much better during rest of the year.

The underlying problem behind chronic homelessness in Philadelphia stems from factors like inadequate low-income housing and funding for the shelter system, according to Roosevelt Darby, an official at PCEH.

And although there's no quick fix for these issues, the city can begin by increasing standards at its homeless shelters, as well as expanding long-term solutions like training programs and subsidized housing.

In the interim, the city can engage in a performance-based evaluation of shelters by talking to the people in those facilities.

In addition, shelters need to separate individuals based on their histories. That way, fewer people are introduced to drug activity in the shelters, a problem that Darby says is "rampant."

More importantly, however, the city and its citizens should open their eyes to conditions for the homeless year round in the shelters.

"Homeless agencies get millions and millions of dollars a year. Is the money they get paid by the government really" being put to good use? McIlree asked.

Elizabeth Song is a College junior from Clemmons, N.C. Her e-mail address is song@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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