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"In the cold weather, it's a difficult situation ... you can become very, very sick and never know what caused it," said Eugene Turbervilli, a 71-year-old homeless man who said he has been sleeping at the shelter for a couple of months.
Turbervilli, who has a thin, gray beard and a wind-hardened face, is one of the oldest men in the ward of the Community for Creative Nonviolence building. His home is a cafeteria-size room littered with the blankets, cigarettes and coffee cups of the more than 100 people who also sleep there in worn iron bunk beds.
The hypothermia ward occupies just one room of the center, a nondescript building on 2nd and D streets that is several blocks away from the Capitol building.
The Community for Creative Nonviolence sees the most occupants in February, traditionally the District's coldest month, said James Burton, a director at the Community for Creative Nonviolence.
"In previous years, we would help about 5,000 people per (hypothermia) season," Burton said. "Last year we reached around 21,000 cases."
With six more weeks of winter, Burton said this year's figures will be similar to last year's.
The winter months usher in a time known as "Hypothermia Season," a five-month span when the health of homeless people is most in jeopardy.
In January, a 50-year-old homeless man was found dead on top of a Ross Hall vent. While District officials have yet to confirm whether the man's death was the result of hypothermia, fire department spokesman Alan Etter said the man most likely suffered from exposure to the cold.
To counter the effects of hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature, the District has a "Hypothermia Hotline" at1-800-535-7252. Upon being notified, the District will pick up a homeless person and deliver him or her at a shelter for the night.
"We think that the city has done a really good job getting the word out about the Hypothermia Hotline," said Deborah Daniels, spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Human Services.
