Across the Great Divide

Shelter Report: Hanging on at the Margins.

If you've just joined us, this is a reminder that in the winter I volunteer for the Catholic Outreach Day Center serving an adult homeless population in Grand Junction, Colorado. Today was my first time back in nearly seven months.

As with my accounts from the preschool in Minnesota, most of the names here are made up—unless I'm writing about someone whose story has already made the newspaper.

Jose came in late and took his accustomed seat against the wall. He often wears a wool cap and dark glasses which along with his beard obscure most of his face. It's hard to know whether he's talking to himself or is actually performing a bit and expecting to be heard. Like others of our guests he can shift abruptly from monologue to dialogue, not making much sense in either mode.

Today he was inventorying tools in one of his packs with a running commentary that wouldn't seem strange if he kept it inside his head. He spoke to a hammer, a screw driver and a few other tools as if Stanley were their first name, not their brand. A box cutter, a can opener, a stainless steel hip flask, a drill bit, a short length of chain that he kinked and unkinked.* Then, the prize—a shiny metal motorcycle mirror with the top edge ragged as the flames of hell.

One of the bikers in the place was ready to buy it on the spot.

All the tools, it turns out, were road kill that Jose found as he rode his bike around the city.

I wrote about Val during my last tour out here. He was hit by a car when jaywalking and spent five months in hospital care recuperating from a broken femur, pelvis, vertebrae, punctured lung, etc. Once he got off the ventilator, he was sent to the VA for physical therapy, but not before collecting an $88 ticket for jaywalking.

"I look both ways when I cross the street now," he said.

Given the extent of his injuries and his age, he was lucky to pull through, but today he looked like his old self. He told me though, some things have changed.

"I appreciate life a lot a more, every day. I don't do meth any more, don't shoot up, I do smoke pot, but I'm taking good care of myself now."

So far, so good.

I spoke with a guest who just recently started coming in. He rents a living room in a house a block away for $100 a month. The house is owned by a man undergoing chemo who mostly stays in his bedroom watching television. The other renter has a job, so he's not around during the day.

A-C has a range of physical ailments and some mental issues that have made it hard for him to stay employed. He lost a job at Wendy's because he couldn't keep up with the pace. A free-lance landscaping business fell apart because he didn't have a car and had to push his equipment around the city for jobs. He had 13 clients, but they were spread too far apart, and his back pain took him down. He works a few hours helping a mover when he can.

He has a hearing coming up to see if he qualifies for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The extra support may help him afford the transportation he needs to restart his landscaping business.

He's positive and wants to work but it's hard to find the right combination of factors.

He's not the only one here who's an "undocumented worker," doing cash jobs, hanging on to some supplemental benefits and living in a substandard housing situation.

"Homeless" doesn't really describe these guys, and neither does "vagrant." They've been living on the margins of the community for years, often with its help. Much of what we do here is provide a place that keeps them from falling any farther.

_________

* It did get my attention when the hammer came out, since hammers and hatchets are sometimes used as weapons when disputes flare up. I kept watch over the box cutter and hip flask, too, but he simply took each item from one bag, commented on it, and then put it in his other pack.

Shelter Report: Becoming Unattached.

After three years of this, I can still be surprised.

Today a boy with a braided pony tail got his head plastered tight to the gym wall because the velcro for holding protective pads to the wall really liked the frizz on his braid.

This was my last shift in the preschool before heading west for about five months. Taking a long break always raises the prospect that I may see none of these children again. The kids know I'm going, but I doubt it's any different to them than the usual news I won't be back until next week.

Families come and go, so there's no guarantee a child will be in the classroom next week, either.

Still, after they leave the shelter, we might meet. Two weeks ago on the aquarium field trip, we ran into a brother and sister who were in another school now. It was fun because they'd been away such a short time and they recognized me before I saw them. If six months had passed, they might not have remembered me at all.

That's part of the deal.

We're all living in the moment in the classroom. Four year olds do that as a matter of course. The adults have a longer perspective, but our influence over the future is still fairly limited, and in a homeless shelter, the sense of impermanence is heightened.

For me, at least, there's a constant push-pull of giving all I can without becoming too attached.

Today two mothers brought their boys to enroll in class and another couple came by to make sure their son was behaving himself. He's impulsive: throws toys, kisses girls, slaps himself when he's frustrated and says "excuse me" when he wants my attention.

Except when he's saying, "hey you!"

We played around with hey you a bit. I told him it wasn't my name and I wasn't going to answer to it. Of course that meant he did it even more for awhile, but after he tired of the joke he started calling me Charlie.

Another boy who's been in class longer has some trouble with his speech. He calls me Chalky, which today seems to fit my grey head more than usual.

Because I am about to become a ghost.

 

 

 

Shelter Report: Strangers Holding Hands in a Monument to Consumption.

Today we filled the preschoolers' morning with a field trip to the Sea Life Aquarium at Mall of America. I can now state with assurance that most of my lifetime visits to MoA have been driven solely by my responsibility as an  escort of small children.

If the Mall depended on people like me, sheep would still be grazing in the fields of south Bloomington.

Based on this morning, children with no disposable income must constitute a majority of the pre-lunch crowd.

The Aquarium is a commercial entertainment venture, like everything else at the Mall. For our kids, it was the first chance they'd had to see jellyfish, watch rays soar overhead and compare their adult buddy's size to that of sea life. Some tickled starfish, but for the most part they seemed to soak it all in at once rather than pay much attention to specific creatures or learning experiences.

Thankfully, that's the way they walked through the Mall, too.

Like most of these outings, this trip was accompanied by a contingent from a local corporation—in this case departments of Cummins Power Generation.

It was the most diverse group I've seen in my three years volunteering—not counting the fact that all but two were male. I didn't get a chance to speak much to the other adults, but I'd guess we had one African, one Chinese and a broad representation from the Indian subcontinent along with a three garden variety Minnesotans.

This was the America we keep reading about but not quite encountering in this state. It's the demographic spread meeting the economic divide. Kids without homes stolling through a monument to consumption. Strangers holding hands.

I don't know how well these trips inform our visitors about the kids or the work the shelter does, since the outings can seem closer to gym than to classroom learning experiences. Anyway, I appreciate their effort and hope some of them come away inspired to do more.

Because these kids will grow with every friendly hand they meet.