By rssfeeds-admin 
It isn’t news to Philadelphia area residents that the winter of 2025/26 was the snowiest and coldest in more than a decade.
Likewise, it’s no surprise to the staff and volunteers at Coalition to Shelter and Support the Homeless (CSSH) – who hosts the Bucks County Code Blue shelter – that the region’s numbers for persons experiencing chronic homelessness are higher than they’ve ever been. In fact, based on newly compiled Code Blue Shelter census data, persons in Bucks County needed more help, more often, than they ever have before.
The Code Blue Shelter relies on donated space and labor. Four area churches, Neshaminy Warwick Presbyterian Church, Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, Doylestown Presbyterian Church and Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church provide sleeping space, restrooms, kitchen facilities and hot nourishing meals to dozens of area residents who lack safe, stable housing. Guests at the shelter receive bedding, can charge their electronic devices and receive referrals for housing assistance and other necessities.
While the Code Blue Shelter doesn’t operate year-round – the work done by CSSH continues through the warmer months allowing the staff to update Bucks County Beacon on the insurmountable odds they faced this past winter as they struggled to keep people warm and safe – because homelessness can be deadly.
According to the National Institute for Health’s National Library of Medicine, chronic homelessness shaves decades off a person’s life. With a 30-year shorter life span, thousands of individuals die each year because they have spent too many years without a home.
In early March, the body of Shawn Kirby – a 34-year-old who had struggled with homelessness and had received assistance since before the pandemic from a number of Bucks County agencies – was discovered at Central Bucks West High School.
And while the Bucks County Coroner’s office has yet to release the autopsy, First Deputy Coroner Scott Croop assured the Bucks County Beacon that there is no evidence of foul play – or that he died by his own hand or someone else’s. When asked if he froze to death, Croop responded that the, “because and manner of death” are not yet available, “the doctor wants more tests.”
READ: National Homeless Rights Advocates Praise Democratic Pennsylvania Lawmakers’ ‘Shelter First’ Bill
All reports from the street are that Shawn Kirby was a person that his case workers cared about deeply. Local heroes like BCOC’s Allen Johnson, who passed away in October of 2024, worked tirelessly to help Shawn. Described in his obituary as “a man who never met a stranger,” Johnson even took Shawn’s calls for help in the middle of the night.
Keeping people from harm is exactly what the Coalition to Shelter and Support the Homeless is intended to do. And this past harsh winter made that task even more difficult.
Elise Karam, CSSH’s Director of Development & Community Engagement, shared the shelter’s final report citing shocking statistics of both abject need, and a generous response, in Pennsylvania’s third wealthiest county.
“This season (December 1st – March 31st) we were open for 87 nights, which is our highest ever, an increase of two nights over last year,” Karam explained.
And that’s two nights fewer than they intended to stay open.
The staff had to cancel two nights that they would otherwise have operated because they couldn’t pre-arrange the volunteers necessary to run the shelter. Those tasks include supervision, cleaning, driving the pick-up vans and spending the night with Bucks County’s most vulnerable residents.
This year, 67 unique persons sought shelter from the wind, rain, biting cold and blizzard conditions which pounded eastern Pennsylvania all winter long. Guests ranged in age from 21 to 77. Two-thirds of the guests who stayed a total of the 1,818 “heads in beds” nights were men.
Karam, still in her first year working with Code Blue, says that these statistics are staggering. The numbers indicated the expanse of the work done by the volunteers – in borrowed spaces – for the sake of total strangers. “To me, this shows the true impact as that’s 1,818 instances of shelter being provided to individuals in need of a safe, warm place to rest.”
This director of community engagement joined Code Blue during a year of unprecedented need. In 2025/26, they helped more people than they ever have before and for the first time ever, the weather was so harsh that neither the volunteers nor the churches felt comfortable releasing their guests into blizzard conditions.
“January’s snowstorm saw 32 guests sheltered at Our Lady of Guadalupe host site continuously from Saturday evening until Wednesday morning,” said Karam.
But she also witnessed incredible kindness as people that normally would have been served a nutritious breakfast, given a bag lunch and escorted out the door by 7 a.m. sheltered in place and received care and lodging for more than a hundred hours in a row.
“This was an incredible collective effort from Code Blue volunteers and the host site’s parish community banding together in a very tough storm to make sure the shelter was staffed around the clock.”
It wasn’t just the snow that made Karam work so hard to do her job – recruiting shelter volunteers, creating awareness, and fundraising to pay the bills. This past winter’s bitter cold temperatures concerned Karam and her colleagues. “One big thing for this winter, especially when you’re looking at January, February – it was so continually cold. The average overnight temperature in January was 13.5 degrees. What that meant for all of us, as volunteers and people who are passionate, is how difficult it is to send people back out into the cold.”
Now that the weather is warmer and the daylight hours last longer, the Code Blue Shelter is closed. Karam spends her days recruiting volunteers and fundraising for necessities. While she’s busy administering the work of CSSH, she also tends to needs that manifest nearly constantly for people experiencing homelessness.
For example, “Much of what we work we do is ID restoration, which is costly and time consuming,” and often must be done over and over again for folks who live on the street. “That’s because if you’ve got one backpack and you’re sleeping outside in a downpour, how long is your birth certificate going to make it?” Karam said.
She and her colleagues understand the wear and tear on vital documents, just as they understand the wear and tear on the people they help. “You need that crucial ID for access to so many services [and employment]. And what if you don’t have it? What if, you know, your social security card has been destroyed by the rain?”
One of the organizations that met with Karam – for the first time this year – is the nonprofit, Doylestown Country Club Cares.
DCC Cares, founded by country club members even though it remains independent of the organization, is a 501c3 that supplies funding and – and in some cases – volunteers to area organizations working “to foster community well-being by providing financial aid, promoting education, and supporting local charities.”
DCC Cares President Tony Crecca explained that helping the Code Blue Shelter just made sense. “It’s really simple for me and for others. We’re all very fortunate. The affiliation that we have, the friendships that we have, we have the means to do good works, and we are part of this community.”
And why prioritize people experiencing homelessness?
“You’d have to willingly not pay attention – to not notice that food insecurity and homelessness is growing,” Crecca said. “I live in Doylestown Borough. A lot of our members are in the same area and you see that there’s need.”
Over the years Crecca and his friends have helped unofficially, but he sees that there’s more to be done and DCC Cares is a good way to do it. “There’s neighbors of mine (and my wife and I) that take time to make sure that the little food pantry is kept stocked. The one over on the corner of Pine and East Oakland [in Doylestown]. There are times, particularly in the winter, where you fill it up and it’s empty within 48 hours. So, there’s a need.”
Crecca said that the help goes both ways.
For one, he said Code Blue has educated him and his community.
“We’ve learned through Elise and her organization, that there are some folks that are working really hard to get back on their feet,” he said. “She’s explained that [Code Blue] it’s not just about providing the shelter overnight, but [they help] folks that are on the brink of homelessness – maintaining their vehicle so they can get to work. That can actually be more important in the short term than what their housing looks like.”
He is grateful for the education in where homelessness comes from and the trap it can become. “Quite honestly, these are things that I’m not sure I or others were that aware of a year ago. It’s certainly been an eye-opening experience for us. So DCC Cares has joined the fight.”
Meanwhile, the battle for safety and security tragically ended for Shawn Kirby. And for many people in Bucks County working to help persons experiencing homelessness, the loss of Shawn is real.
Ruth Boone, treasurer of the Coalition to Shelter and Support the Homeless and volunteer at the Code Blue Shelter for more than a decade, remembered Shawn fondly.
“I grieve because he was such a gentle soul. A soft-spoken and gentle person,” Boone said.
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