Homeless Man Dies of Hypothermia; No Foul Play Found.

Each time I see a section of a city where there is new construction going on, I'm usually struck by how much money is being spent there,  and then I usually think to myself how wasteful it is. I see not just more, but more expensive housing for the affluent in the inner cities of the nation, rather than housing for the homeless, and/or the mentally ill, and unfortunately this is what happens...

Robert Hunter Jr, 21

 A tenant entering the sprawling industrial complex at Bailey Avenue and Broadway spotted the body lying on the ground near the building at about 6 a.m. Thursday and called police.

Ronald Hunter Jr. was dead.
The temperature overnight had been 2 degrees, and a stiff wind took the wind chill to nearly 20 degrees below zero.
But the 21-year-old Hunter, who was homeless and mentally ill, had discarded his jacket and attempted to remove his shirt before he died, police said.
In the most severe cases of hypothermia, medical experts say, individuals have been known to undress when they become disoriented and think they are overheating as their blood vessels constrict.
Hunter’s 6-foot, 3-inch, 150-pound body was unable to produce heat quickly enough to replenish the warmth lost to the bitter cold and harsh winds.
“There was no foul play. Hypothermia caused the death,” said Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda, confirming an Erie County Medical Examiner’s autopsy.
Hunter’s death highlights just how at risk the homeless – especially those who are mentally ill – are in winter weather as severe as that which occurred during the past week, according to workers and volunteers who assist them. Some homeless people lack the ability to know when it is time to come in from the cold.
“On nights when it is declared a Code Blue, with temperatures below 15 degrees, we go out in a van trying to bring the homeless to shelters,” said Aubrey Pula, program manager at Harbor House, a downtown drop-in center where Hunter sometimes spent the night, pacing the floor and staying to himself.
“Some refuse us, and we give them food and blankets,” she said.
A surveillance video camera at the Acme Business Park captured Hunter’s final moments overnight Wednesday as he wandered into a desolate section at the north end of the business park – a massive, subdivided one-story structure with several tenants, ranging from Catholic Charities to an auto parts manufacturer. Authorities told Hunter’s family what was on the tape.
“He kept falling down and getting up,” said Ronald Hunter Sr. “It looked like he was trying to make his way to the building to maybe try and get inside, but he never made it. He was wandering around back there for some time.”
Hunter’s father went to the spot where his son died.
“I went Thursday evening, and the snow had been plowed away,” he said of the parking lot that rolls up to loading docks at the back of the complex, which is not far from a Bailey Avenue bridge over railroad tracks, north of where Bailey intersects Broadway.
“He was way, way in the back in that parking lot,” the father said of where his son collapsed and died. “I still hope the police continue their investigation. I have questions and I don’t think everything is known.”

‘I’m hearing voices’

The path to Ronald Hunter Jr.’s death began several years ago, when he started acting strangely and became alienated from those who loved him most, relatives said.
“When he was living with us, I found him curled up in a ball in the corner of a bedroom, and I said, ‘What’s wrong, baby?’ ” his father recalled.
“I’m hearing voices telling me to kill myself,” his son told him.
“We called Crisis Services, and they evaluated him,” his father said.
It was determined that the younger Hunter suffered from schizophrenia and behavioral disorders.
“But because he was 18, it was up to him if he wanted help,” said Sharon Hunter, his stepmother.
The elder Hunter said his son sought help from time to time from a mental health services provider but did not stick with it.
And his mental illness worsened in recent years, said his mother, Donna McNally.
“He began to have outbursts,” she said.
But her son, the youngest of seven children, could be the most gentle and loving person when he was calm, McNally said.
As a boy, Hunter attended Lincoln Academy grammar school. As a teenager, he went to Burgard High School, although he quit before graduating.
The last time his mother saw him was on New Year’s Eve, when Ronald Hunter Sr. drove him to her home in the Town of Tonawanda.
“He came in and said, ‘Mom, I love you,’ ” McNally recalled. “I said, ‘I love you, Ronald.’ ”
“We hugged and then he left.”
Ronald Hunter Sr. had driven his son to her home after picking him up at Erie County Medical Center, where the young man had spent two days in the psychiatric unit after police took him there following a disturbance at a West Side convenience store.
At about 10 a.m. Wednesday, the father said, he drove his son and a long-time friend to downtown Buffalo.
“Ronald was going to live with his friend, and he wanted to apply for cash to help with the rent. They were going to try and make ends meet by living together. I dropped Ronald off at Social Services,” the father said.
And that was the last time he saw his son.

Help at Harbor House

Staff members and residents at Harbor House, where Hunter sometimes stayed, recalled that Hunter kept to himself.
“He’d pace the floor, but he didn’t bother anybody,” said 57-year-old Eugene Jones, who has been homeless since he was evicted from his apartment after ownership of the building changed hands six months ago. “Ronald didn’t go wild like some people do.”
Thomas Kissell said he could relate to what Hunter had gone through. He, too, knows what it is like to be out in the extreme cold, saying he almost died Friday morning.
“I’d gone to the emergency room at Erie County Medical Center because my legs were swelling up and I didn’t feel well. I was released at 2 a.m.,” the 50-year-old Kissell said, showing hospital discharge papers. “I walked all the way here,” he said of the Harbor House facility on the 200 block of Genesee Street.
“It took me hours, almost till dawn. I knew if I stopped I’d freeze to death.”
Kissell pulled up his pant leg to reveal his bloated right calf.
“Look at how my leg is swollen,” he said. “Both my legs are swollen to the knees.”
A bottle of Brisk iced tea-lemonade in a side pocket of his knapsack was no longer liquid, but slush.

On the edge

On Wednesday, the day before Ronald Hunter Jr.’s body was found, Buffalo recorded the most frigid temperatures and negative wind chills of the week, according to National Weather Service data. Just before 9 that night, the temperature dropped to 2 degrees, while the wind chill dipped to minus 18 degrees.
The low temperatures for the entire week only exceeded single digits once, and the brutal wind chills continued into Thursday morning.
Where are the homeless to find shelter? Harbor House, which describes its operations as a “night-time drop-in center,” is open year-round. The Buffalo City Mission and St. Luke’s Mission of Mercy also offer shelter to the homeless.
The stories of the homeless who find shelter at Harbor House show how close they live to the edge of life, said Michael Broadus, who works at the facility, which specializes in assisting the mentally ill.
“If I were homeless, I’d hope that someone would be there for me,” Broadus said.
Harbor House’s Pula offered condolences to the Hunter family from the staff and those they serve.
“Our hearts and thoughts are with the family,” she said.
She then went out Friday night, on the fifth consecutive Code Blue effort of the week, to gather homeless from the streets and take them back to Harbor House.
“They’re really good people, even the ones that do bad things,” she said. “Once you talk with them, you see how good they are.”