NEW ROCHELLE, NY — New Rochelle Police were called to the Oasis Shelter at 19 Washington Avenue in New Rochelle, NY after a report that a person had died overnight at the shelter. The call came in at 5:39 a.m.
“The death was not suspicious,” said Sgt. Kyle Wilson.
The Westchester Medical Examiner was called to the scene and removed the body this morning.
What was Suspicious
The death was not suspicious in that it was not violent, and that the shelter did not do anything wrong in notifying authorities. The man woke up this morning went outside to get a cigarette, went back upstairs to sleep and was found dead. He did not from what I am hearing do drugs or drink.
But it is suspicious and interesting and likely wrong that the man was there, and it says something about the “Homeless Resource Center” From what my friends tell me he was in his 60’s or 70’s, and was not in the best health. It seems that there was a good chance that he had psychological issues, and behaved unusually. He was never violent or aggressive to anyone. He kept to himself, was polite apparently he had been even quieter than usual for the last week. It is unclear at this point if he was a client in the day program but either way he at his age and with his disabilities should not have still been there, he should have been referred to DSS if a drop-in client, or to a housing program. Clearly someone is not doing there job.
There are a number of people over 65 who have been at the shelter, some still there and there are clients who have had health problems some severe after and during that may have been exacerbated or caused by the conditions (though this is the first time a client has died at the shelter to the best of my knowledge). There are a number of people with disabilities there, and in the past when I stayed there I met people released from mental health programs or hospitals, not helped (by the hospitals) find a place to go, released, then , sent to the drop-ins by DSS after they get out (this is a small minority of clients, most are there because of economic reasons) None of the people I have seen in these circumstances are violent, they are good kind people, but they should not be there.
Besides the homeless resource center Hope gets a grant to house these people (really it is HUD funded, but given to the city which gives it to Hope, but Mr. Giles has told me he will not give me any of these contracts through FOIL and I must “foil Hope”. As Hope, as a nongovernmental agency, isn’t subject to FOIL I will FOIL HUD instead.) and while I won’t know how many until my foil to HUD comes back they definitely have vacancies.
http://www.hopecommunityservices.org/programs.html
As I have written about before I only personally know two people in the program.
It isn’t clear how he died, except that it was in his sleep Whatever health problem he had he might have had anyways, but I doubt that a situation where the clients often sleep in chairs, where the EM people were so afraid of getting the clients bedbugs that they wore hazmat suits to get the body helped. He shouldn’t have been there, but then really no one should.