With the last 75 cents in his pocket, Harold Cruz, 52, bought a soda from a machine. Although he was hungry and staying in a homeless shelter in the city, he did not buy the soda to drink. Rather, he bought it to put in a sock to use as a weapon for defense.

“Spending cold days in a shelter is worse than being in jail,” Cruz said yesterday while he pushed his shopping cart, which allows him to earn his living by collecting aluminum cans and plastic bottles.

The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) declared a “Code Blue” yesterday due to the freezing temperatures that dropped to 12 degrees Fahrenheit. DHS workers went on the streets to convince homeless people to go voluntarily to the shelters, where they are given a bed and hot food, but many like Cruz are afraid to go.

“Before, I would stay for two or three months in a shelter in Manhattan, but there the big guys picked on the little guys, and the security didn’t do anything,” said Cruz, who arrived here from Honduras 12 years ago and, after working in bodegas, became addicted to drugs, lost his job and the room he rented, and he went to live on the streets.

In the winter he rents a room, and in the summer he constructs a shelter out of cardboard on the West Faros Bridge near East Tremont in the Bronx. Cruz showed a key that he wears around his neck on a shoe string. “If the people from the city want to pick me up and take me to the shelters, I show them the key, I tell them that I have a room to sleep in, and they leave me alone,” he said.

Others who prefer to sleep in a park or in the emergency room of a hospital when the temperatures drop are the Salvadorian Ana Cañas, 56, and her friend from Korea, Keum Han Yun, 69, who have been homeless for more than 18 years and avoid sleeping in shelters “because there are a lot of fights there.”

A DHS spokesperson insisted that it is safer to be in the shelter, especially in the winter, when the temperatures can cause hypothermia. The spokesperson said that there are several options for people who are afraid of the shelters, such as Safe Havens, which provide beds to chronically homeless people.

Around 34,578 people reside in city shelters, among them 9,047 families and 6,657 single adults, according to the DHS statistics.

DHS asked the public to call 311 or 911 in the case of an emergency if they see someone who needs help.