Two unhoused people died of hypothermia this past winter, the City of St. Louis is now saying. Following SLM’s coverage of the city’s Code Blue initiative, a city spokesperson reached out Thursday to correct a line in that story and say that, in fact, multiple people had died from the cold who lacked shelter, despite the city and provider network’s efforts to bring unhoused people into shelter through the new Code Blue program.
When asked why the city had not previously discussed either cold-related death—nor released any information on them—Department of Human Services spokesman Ryan Sheehan told SLM in a message “the city doesn’t proactively share information about deaths” as a matter of policy. (Editor’s note: After we published Monday, a city spokesman reached out to clarify that the City of St. Louis has “no policy that specifically says we don’t” share info on deaths. The city, he say, just hasn’t done so historically.)
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The medical examiner certified the two deaths with a cause of death on Dec. 11 and March 27, respectively, the city spokesperson added.
The city now says that on Nov. 2, 2025, Willie Hurst passed away “in part due to hypothermia,” adding that he was found at the intersection of Pine Street and North Broadway. A few months later, on Jan. 26, 2026, Duan Coleman was found at North 13th Street and Cass Avenue, with hypothermia also being a factor. Both men had “co-morbidities,” a city spokesman says. Coleman would have died mere blocks from the homeless encampment at 10th Street and Cass Avenue.
Coleman died on an evening when the city was at Code Blue “level four” and hundreds of beds were available. Level four comes online at below-freezing temperatures and triggers massively scaled-up shelter capacity, as well as a shuttle system that can transport unhoused people from outside into shelters in a certain window of time.
Hurst, however, died on an evening where temperatures were close to, but still above, freezing, before the first Code Blue activation of the winter.
Anthony D’Agostino, who leads major shelter provider Peter and Paul Community Services, told SLM Friday that he had only heard about the circumstances of Coleman’s death last week, and said the city should notify people of unhoused deaths, adding that unhoused should be given the “dignity” of having their individual identity known.
D’Agostino noted that situations like Hurst’s present a challenge: People are still at risk when temperatures are just above freezing, but emergency shelter beds aren’t available because temperatures aren’t low enough to trigger scaled response.
Overall, providers have praised the city’s efforts this past winter as a success, and Code Blue appears now to have another year of funding on the horizon, too. City budget director Paul Payne said in a presentation last week to the city’s fiscal oversight board, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, that it budgeted $2 million for Human Services to run that program in the city’s fiscal year 2027 proposed operating plan. Code Blue is credited with helping more than 1,000 people, leading to 20,000 bed nights (the metric for shelter services), and anecdotal reports suggest that there might have been fewer instances of frostbite. D’Agostino also told SLM earlier that it marked a better collaborative process between shelter providers and the city, compared to years prior.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a clarification from the city on what its policy around unhoused deaths say, or don’t say.
