Vermont Public | J Buck/Seven Days
Social workers Sarah Russell and Taylor Thibault stepped off the compact bus and set out on foot through downtown Burlington, searching for the homeless who hunkered in the folds of otherwise deserted streets. A subzero windchill had pushed most city residents inside as midnight approached on January 21, one of the coldest nights this winter. Russell and Thibault’s bus had 14 seats they could use to shuttle people to an emergency warming shelter the city had opened inside a gymnasium three miles away.