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Finally, after nearly three months of unrelenting cold, Eau Claire residents received a reprieve from winter for a couple of mid-February days when high temperatures hovered near 40 degrees. It felt impossibly warm to this homeless population that had become so accustomed to frigid conditions. On those nights, the often somber mood at Sojourner House brightened considerably.

__________

 

After the warmest day spent wandering Eau Claire’s streets in months, Santiago DeMars felt unusually happy as he ate his meatball dinner at Sojourner House. Never mind the fact he has been homeless on and off for the past several years. The thoughtful, soft-spoken DeMars was nearly giddy on this night.

 

“I’m feeling real good today,” DeMars said, reflecting on the day’s relatively warm, sunny weather. “It’s a great day to be in Eau Claire.”

 

From Dec. 1 through the end of February, the low temperature in Eau Claire had dropped below zero degrees on 53 days, the highest-recorded total since 1977-78. The city had received 59 inches of snow during that time, 2 feet more than normal. By any measure, it had been a brutal winter. For homeless people living on the streets, the weather had been especially dispiriting, exacting a bone-wearying toll.

 

That’s why this break in the bad weather felt so good. Across the room from DeMars, Rebecca Dash smiled contentedly as her husband brushed her hair. It was the first time she had felt happy in a while, she said. Her eyes sparkled and she flashed a mischievous grin as she described how she met Ralph on a long-ago summer night in Cumberland. He has stood by her through good times and bad, through breast cancer and other maladies and homelessness.

 

“My mom and dad told me to stay away from him,” Rebecca said, chuckling. “They told me he was trouble. But I didn’t listen. We’ve had plenty of tough times. And through it all, we’re still together.”

 

The winter break was short-lived. On Thursday, Feb. 20, temperatures remained near freezing, warm for this winter, but a 7-inch wet, heavy snowfall accompanied by blizzard-like winds was a sure sign winter’s grip had returned. Overnight the temperature plummeted, and by the next day all that wet snow was frozen solid, covering trees, streets, vehicles and everything else in a slippery, unforgiving ice layer.

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A bitter winter that seemed like it would never end had gotten the best of Eau Claire’s homeless residents. The benefit checks many received at the start of the month were mostly gone by the last week of March, meaning many who had spent the earlier part of the month in hotels, seeking a respite from other homeless people, now packed Sojourner House. Continued cold weather added to the shelter’s population.

__________

 

Dusty Soulier’s name hadn’t been read. He was headed out on the streets for another cold night in a winter full of them.

 

Soulier spent part of this night at a Sojourner House packed beyond capacity. The list of names of people allowed to spend that night at the shelter didn’t include Soulier’s. At 10 p.m. he threw his backpack over his shoulders and headed out the door. The temperature outside, 2 degrees below zero, felt much colder because of a brisk wind out of the north.

 

“It’s just the way it is,” Soulier said as he headed from the shelter entrance into the dark.

 

Soulier would spend this night the same way he spent many others this winter, wandering Eau Claire’s streets searching for an out-of-the way place to sleep. He has found unlikely makeshift beds near the river or on park benches or on the unforgiving stone floor of the city parking garage. On this night Soulier was still on his feet, walking, too cold to sleep, when the sun peeked over the horizon.

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On that same night in another part of town, John Lawton took another sip from another cup of coffee, struggling to stay awake.

 

It was shortly after 2 a.m. on March 25, another in a seemingly endless stretch of overnights during which cold had become commonplace. Never mind what the calendar said. This late March felt like January or February.

 

Just as he had for the past several nights, Lawton spent this one at the Perkins restaurant along Hastings Way. The giant American flag outside the restaurant fluttered in the chilly breeze. Like Soulier, Lawton had been shown the door at Sojourner House on this busy night at the shelter where the 39-year-old Lawton has spent time for the past 10 months.

 

The mostly-empty restaurant was a good setting for Lawton, who struggles with multiple mental health issues including anxiety, depression and bipolar and schizophrenic disorders. Too much noise, too much activity around him prompts Lawton’s brain to jump into hyper drive, creating panic and angst and, sometimes, anger.

 

“I have a lot of issues,” the soft-spoken, morose Lawton said four hours earlier as he sat in a cushioned chair at Sojourner House.

 

Lawton said he gets by on just $200 per month, money he gets from his twice-weekly plasma donations. He said he has attempted to qualify for other benefits but is unable to navigate what he deems a complicated system to obtain them. He sometimes contemplates committing crimes as a way into a system he hopes will address his problems. “At least that way I would get some attention,” he said.

 

Lawton spent plenty of nights this winter at Perkins, drinking coffee and watching sports via his cellphone to stay awake. But on this night, all alone, Lawton pondered his difficult life, recalling how a sense of hopelessness eventually came to dominate his every waking moment. How he tried to drink himself to death in his mid-20s. How he woke up in a hospital bed, lucky to be alive. How he has slid ever downward for the past decade, unable to land a job, barely able to exist.

 

“Most of the time I can hardly function,” Lawton said. “I’m pretty much a basket case.”

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