Advocates hope transient's death brings others in from the cold

The man was found on the second floor of an abandoned building, laying on a thin, foam mattress. A coat and a hat were his only protection from the extremely cold temperatures.

It wasn't nearly enough.

"It looks like he just laid down and went to sleep and didn't wake up," Ogden Police Lt. Scott Sangberg said Thursday.

Police believe the cold may have contributed to the death of the 44-year-old man whose body was found Wednesday afternoon on the second floor of a boarded up building at 2314 Washington Blvd. Detectives are having had a hard time notifying next of kin, because he was homeless.

"He's a local transient-type individual who has been in and out of jail," Sangberg said. "In fact, he had a citation in his pocket out of Riverdale for something."

Police and homeless advocates say the man's death didn't have to happen. But as the state endures sub-freezing temperatures, authorities fear there may be more like him.

"It's really unfortunate," said Jennifer Canter, who runs the St. Anne's shelter on Binford Street. "There are places he could have gone."

The cold temperatures have been bringing in the homeless. St. Anne's has been packed for the past week, their 100 beds all taken. Canter has made room by letting people sleep in hallways and in the lobby. If it gets worse, she's not afraid to open the cafeteria up to sleep 20 to 30 more people.

No matter how bad it gets, some people still refuse to come in from the cold. Part of it's mental health issues and another part of it is the transient lifestyle, police said.

"They don't like the structured life," Sangberg said. "They don't like people telling them what to do."

Canter agrees, citing the shelter's rules about closing the doors at 8 p.m. and not letting people go outside for a cigarette. Still, she is willing to bend the rules every now and then.

"Even though we lock our door at 8, we still bring people in all night long," she said. "We'll find them a spot."

For those who refuse to stay in a shelter, St. Anne's and the other shelters in Ogden hand out blankets and sleeping bags. Transient camps are up and down the Weber River, police said, and people often stay there all winter long without problems.