“They were always together,” one local homeless man near the Convention Center said of Dennis “Pops” Waller and his friend Mike Clash, who were found dead in downtown Baltimore in early December. Waller was well liked, and a friend that “would push Pops in his wheelchair,” the man said.

But, he added, “everyone down there is saying they just gave up.”

Waller often joined others seeking warmth on the grates near the Convention Center, so his absence was noticed the night he died on the streets. And when people learned he had died, “Everyone was talking about it,” said Nokie, a homeless man who knew Waller.

The deaths came during a sharp cold spell early in December. The Baltimore medical examiner said that Waller and Clash died from alcohol intoxication and from hypothermia – the dangerously low body temperature that can occur when people are out in the cold without adequate clothing or shelter.

They were followed by the mid-December deaths of John Turner, a group home resident who died outdoors of heart disease complicated by hypothermia, and area homeless man David Cano, who died of alcohol intoxication and hypothermia.

This string of cold-weather related deaths got Baltimore’s winter season off to a grim and shocking start for the local homeless community. But such a jolt has also prompted an expansion of the city’s emergency shelter.

“I think it sent shock waves through a lot of communities,” said Adam Schneider of Baltimore’s Health Care for the Homeless, adding that “for people living on the fringes of society, they realize life on the street can very quickly turn to death on the street.”

In late December, the Baltimore Health Department announced changes to the city’s “Code Blue” policies for emergency shelter in cold weather. For three years, Baltimore has opened a Code Blue shelter on the coldest nights. The shelter has been open when the temperature was below 25 degrees, with sustained winds of 15 miles per hour or more.

Now that shelter, located in the Oliver Recreation Center on East Federal Street, will be open any night a temperature 32 degrees or below is predicted. Factors like wet, cold weather may also prompt a Code Blue activation.

The decision to extend Code Blue operations was an easy one, say many observers. In fact, Schneider said that even before the new rules were made official in late December, the city began activating its Code Blue system on nights not meeting the old standard.

And as many people pointed out, the 32-degree standard brings Baltimore into line with other cities. Though, Laura Gillis, president of Baltimore Homeless Services, said this is no coincidence, because the new Code Blue policy is the result of a comprehensive review of past experience and of what has worked elsewhere.

“A couple of things converged at one time” in December, Gillis said. “Code Blue had been a pretty successful death-prevention measure. And at the same time, a new health commissioner [Dr. Joshua Sharfstein] started.”

So Gillis’s organization, which provides services to homeless people on behalf of the city, began reviewing data and consulting medical experts. The result is a policy that more closely reflects the consensus among shelter providers and homeless people alike that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Still, advocates agree that more needs to be done, and some are calling for a further expansion of winter shelter options. “Part of the problem of having any criterion at all [before opening the Code Blue shelter] is that people don’t know the shelter is open,” Schneider said. “The better thing to do is to create a low-barrier shelter that is open throughout the season.”

And that, said Gillis, is exactly what her organization would like to do. “We’re planning on a low-barrier winter shelter,” she said, that would be open every night from November 15 through March 15. That will mean finding more money, staff and other resources, just like the expansion of the Code Blue system.

Those may be easier to find after December’s deaths. At an early January City Council hearing on homeless services, planned topics included the familiar ones of shelter beds and funding. But the hypothermia crisis, and a shared a sense of approval for the new Code Blue policies, also found their way onto the agenda, along with calls to get everyone off the streets.

Despite all the efforts by the city council and providers, homeless individuals are still worried about their fate when the temperature drops. Baltimore has hundreds of homeless people sleeping out on any given night, and as one homeless man near the Convention Center said, “It’s just hard out here.”

Dan Andersen contributed to this story.

For more information about Baltimore shelters, or to learn if Code Blue is in effect, call 311 in Baltimore.