Mid Hudson Times Nov. 21 2018 | Page 3

3 Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, November 21, 2018 Warming center opens at 104 Lander Street By KATELYN CORDERO [email protected] The warming center on 104 South Lander Street is open early this year to accommodate the homeless population of Newburgh. The center opened on Friday, November 9, thanks to the hard work of The Newburgh Ministry. The center will remain open until April 30, 2019, when the weather gets warmer. The center is open from 4 p.m. to 8:15 a.m. each day. To request a bed you must arrive to the facility at 4 p.m. Discussions over the opening of the warming center were tense with The Newburgh Ministry and uncertain until days before opening if they would have the building ready in time. In council meetings the building is described by Councilwoman Hillary Rayford as an unfit property. “We know the building is not up for shelter right now,” said Rayford, at a city council meeting on October 22. “128 Broadway is more permissible, so maybe we won’t have to trouble the heights area because we know there’s a playground where kids go right next door. It wouldn’t help the taxpayers who are already complaining about the activities going on in the heights.” A walk through at the shelter after its opening on Friday with Sally McAndrews, Supervisor of the Warming Station, will show an empty building with no surrounding activity during the day. The building has no clear deficiencies aside from plumbing issues, that are being remediated. According to Colin Jarvis, Anyone in need of a warm bed can find one at 104 South Lander Street. Director of The Newburgh Ministry, the building will need work done to the roof, This situation is being remediated in the coming week. He has not experienced any significant leaks or running water into the building due to issues with the roof. During operating hours, upon entering the building you will go through the proper security check. A client or guest will show their ID or give their name. Staff will ask them to empty all pockets, to then get patted down. Any illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia discovered is turned over to the police. Each time a guest leaves the building they must empty out all their pockets and get checked again. “We have to operate our facility with the highest regard for safety, for our staff and our clients.” said Jarvis. “At the end of the day we are saving 31 people from freezing their butts in conditions that are not too shabby. Nobody is shooting up drugs, not in the facilities we operate.” In the three nights since opening the facility, the warming center has served between 25 to 31 people each night. The center has a low turnover rate, with many people coming back to the same bed each night. The center serves men and women with separate sleeping quarters, men in the upstairs and women in a large room on the lower level. They offer limited services, such as an Alcoholics Anonymous group that will meet at the shelter each week with staff members leading the discussions. “There is a significant level of difficulty with running this facility,” said Jarvis. “We are barely covering all the costs. For many of these people this is the first time they will sleep indoors since May. These are the people you would see on the news freezing to death in an abandoned building, sleeping under bridges. This is where we are right now.” Expansion planned for Purple Heart Hall of Honor By WAYNE A. HALL Gov. Andrew Cuomo kicked off a $10-million-dollar” expansion of the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor in New Windsor last Monday. That’s a potentially tremendous boost to the museum that now sees an average of 26,000 visitors a year who come to experience the New Windsor-based museum’s unique display of memorabilia and riveting first-person accounts by combat veterans whose wounds earned them purple hearts. Museum backers had urged state lawmakers to expand the over overwhelmingly popular museum that sees 26,000 visitors a year. “We expect those visitor numbers to increase at the Cantonment,” once site upgrades kick in, said James F. Hall, executive director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission which oversees the planned Purple Heart museum upgrades. The upgrades include enhanced and interactive exhibits and galleries, improved pedestrian circulation throughout the museum, parking upgrades and walkway improvements. The museum plans to expand exhibits, said Hall, to make them more accessible where necessary. On the to-do list are also improving museum guest movement circulation to the various displays. “The building will also be expanded with a new wing,” Hall added. “Finding ways to improve visitor’s experiences is the goal of the project,” said Hall. “This place is small but very tastefully put together,” wrote one visitor on the museum’s comment diary. An advisory committee that includes museum goers and veterans has been working on display upgrade proposals. The overwhelming positive response from museum goers is also about the unique audio and visual records of Purple Heart recipients. By its very nature the Purple Heart Hall of Honor museum is a repository for combat histories, which makes it unique. It is designed to connect museum goers with those who earned the Purple Heart in the soldiers’ own words and actions of bravery. The expansion includes a new wing with “enhanced and interactive exhibits and galleries, a redesigned entrance, public gathering space, improved pedestrian circulation and increased programming.” As for the money to upgrade the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor it came in a Nov. 10 deal between Democratic state lawmakers and Republicans to name the Tapan Zee Bridge after past governor Mario Cuomo in return for the $10-million-dollar New Windsor Purple Heart Hall of Honor.