"Old," leaving the warming center for a bit: "I try not to complain." David Cox: "This is not where I want to be." As the temperature outside dipped into the 20s Thursday morning, David Cox sat inside a Dixwell church extended-hour warming center — his legs crossed, bundled up in a coat and scarf and beanie hat, his walker by his side and a window sill lined with Pothos plants behind him. He didn’t want to be at that warming center. And he didn’t plan on staying long. But for now, with the weather dangerously cold, it was a safe place to be. Cox, 62, was one of around 15 people sitting, lying down, standing, killing time Thursday at 10 a.m. at Varick A.M.E. Zion Church’s warming center at 242 Dixwell Ave.He was one of several people interviewed by the Independent at Varick Thursday morning who said they’d rather be somewhere else — with friends, family, the library, just elsewhere. They also expressed appreciation for what the warming center was — just a warm place to be, open all day, with chairs and a floor, however uncomfortable, to sleep on. Varick is one of two city warming centers, along with the 180 Center on East Street, open for the season for adults with no place else to go. (The city’s third warming center, a Youth Continuum-run facility on Winthrop Avenue, is open only to young people aged 18 to 24.) All are funded by the United Way of Greater New Haven and will be run until April. While Varick and the other warming centers are typically open only from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., all week this week, thanks to the city’s enactment of its extreme cold weather protocols, they’ve been open 24 hours a day. Those extended hours run through Friday at 12 p.m., when these warming centers will drop back to their typical hours. (Youth Continuum’s Winthrop facility will not have those same extended hours due to day programs at the site, but young adults are invited to stop by Youth Continuum’s drop-in center at 943 Grand Ave. during the day.)Varick Warming Center Program Manager Shellina Toure told the Independent on Thursday that the church’s warming center typically has capacity for 35 people at a time. During the cold-weather extended hours this week, they’ve allowed 40 to 45 people at a time. She said the center is typically full at night, with people sleeping where they can on the warming center’s floor.On Thursday morning, Cox told the Independent that he didn’t spend last night at Varick — instead, he was at the hospital, being treated for a complication with his diabetes. Once discharged from the hospital, he made his way to the Varick warming center for the morning. He said he plans later in the day to head to the downtown public library, where he said he spends most of his time staying warm and reading by himself when the library is open — and when he doesn’t have to be at the warming center.Cox said he grew up in Miami, and still visits there when he can. He said he came to New Haven to be closer to his elderly parents. ​“I don’t want to be a burden on them. And I don’t want to be a butler,” he said. He also said he has four adult children still down in Florida. ​“My children are grown. They don’t need me around to raise them.”Cox said he tries to keep to himself at the warming center. He gets frustrated by how frequently people ask him for money. He wants to be left alone. He described sleeping on the floor at the warming center as uncomfortable — but, he said, it’s better than nothing.Asked where he spends the night when he’s not sleeping at Varick’s warming center, Cox reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a plastic Zip-lock bag filled with quarters, loose cash, and a green Visa credit card. This Visa, he said, lets him ​“go anywhere I want to be.”At the other end of the warming center, tucked into a corner with a blanket and bags and her belongings laid out around her, was Shirley Herren, 40.Herren said she’s been spending nights at Varick since two days after Christmas. Originally from New London, she said she came to the New Haven area because she heard the city had more resources and supports than elsewhere in the state for people like herself who are recovering from addiction.Herren wiped back tears as she said she was recently kicked out of her residential treatment program in Hamden and separated from her now-2-year-old daughter. She said her daughter is now staying with her daughter’s father, who she described as abusive. She just wants to be back with her daughter, she said, but finds herself homeless, in limbo, at the warming center.“All you can do is just do what you can to stay warm,” she said about the weather. Herren said she also spends a lot of time at the downtown library — except on Sundays, of course, when the library is closed.Herren said she’s found plenty of support from myriad agencies in New Haven on her path to recovery. She listed the APT Foundation, MCCA, and the state Department of Children and Familes (DCF) as a few. But now, she said, after getting kicked out of her recent residential program, she feels left behind and alone. Which is made all the harder by being separated from her daughter.Herren said she had pitched camp in the corner of the warming center in part to retain what privacy she can, in part because she recently tested positive for Covid and doesn’t want to get others sick. “Everybody’s on top of each other” at night when the warming center is packed, she said. She said she has arthritis all up and down her back. ​“There’s no comfort” here, sleeping on the floor. But, she concluded, ​“I don’t complaint, because it’s warm.”At around 11 a.m., a woman who gave her name only as ​“Old” — a nickname, she said with a smile, that’s just what people call her, even though she said she’s not old — was carrying bag after bag of belongings out of the warming center. She said she’d be back later in the day, but had to leave for a little bit to ​“take care of some business.”She praised the warming center as, well, providing a warm place to stay when she has nowhere else. With one more smile, bundled up in her winter coat and hat, she said, ​“I try not to complain.”Asked what would make her life just a little bit easier at this time, Old responded without hesitation: ​“A place to live.”Shirley Herren: "They clean the hell out of this place."