Across the Great Divide

Shelter Report: The Things They Show Me.

Ron came in early this morning. Often, he sits in the vestibule watching the proceedings and aiming silent commentary from his repertoire of grimaces. He may not enter the Day Center at all, even for a cup of coffee. 

Today, he came in for his mail. All he had was his statement from US Bank. He opened it and showed me his balance: $2.52.

Julia checked her mail, too. She was hoping her medications had arrived because she'd been going without for eight days and said she'd spent the night in the ER as a result. She was delighted to sign for the fat envelope from Ohio.

Joyce came in near the end of our busiest day all year—about number 111. She needed some antiseptic lotion and something she could use as a bandage.

She showed me her knee where the frostbite wound from last winter still hasn't healed, a multicolored, hand-sized scab that's cracked and raw. We were out of ointments and only had regular band-aids, so I offered her rubbing alcohol, hand lotion and a paper towel. Then she can show it to the doctors who come in tomorrow.

Special K walked in with a good quality boarder/bike helmet, the style with an integrated liner. None of folks I know here who ride bikes wear a helmet. It's just one more thing to keep track of. Special K is a renowned dumpster diver, so I asked him where he found it.

He said he'd bought it at the pawn shop, then showed me the sticker still on the helmet with the date it was pawned and the name of the guy who pawned it. "I know that guy!" he said. "It's my girl friend's brother."

His girl friend saw the helmet and said it was hers. They looked at the date on the sticker—two days before her birthday—and realized the brother had pawned her helmet to buy her a birthday present.

Patrick, another regular, was clipping off his beard in the vestibule during this and chimed in with another story about Special K and the pawn shop. Patrick's distinctive backpack had been stolen. Special K showed up at the Day Center with it one day.

"Hey, that's my backpack!"

Special K stripped it off immediately and said, "It's yours but I didn't take it," and gave his account of finding it at the pawn shop.

Patrick said, "That's an interesting story. Do you have a receipt?"

Special K is not an individual who carries paperwork of any kind.

"Okay, then you're going with me to the pawn shop right now to see if it's true. If not, we've still got some business." Patrick puffed himself up in front of Special K. "And now we love each other."

Then they both laughed and hugged.

Special K had one more thing to show us. A black plastic case he'd found in an alley.

"I thought at first it might be a gun," he said, "and I can't have a gun..."

Professional dog grooming clippers with an extra-long cord.

"Try 'em. They're a lot better than those hair clippers, and they have a reeeal nice vibration."

Patrick was skeptical, but Special K is one of those people who have so little to lose they never seem to lie, so he gave them a shot.

Ten minutes later, he returned them with a big grin on his face.

"Really sweet," he said. "Best haircut I ever had." 

Shelter Report: Disposing of the Estate, Part 2

Fourteen months ago, I wrote this post about a regular guest who disappeared. The day center director and I emptied his storage bin and put his possessions in the back, in case "Abe" returned.  

One day different either way, and I probably never would have learned more of the story. I've added an update at the end.

What would you save of your estate if all you had was 32 gallons of storage?

We never get the full picture at the Day Center, even with the people who are most forthcoming. Human beings are too complex, even the damaged ones, the ones who seem like they have no life except clinging to survival.

I may write like I know people but I'm just taking snapshots of passing shadows.

Abe, for instance.

I've written about him in years past under other assumed names. How his camp gear was soaked by rain. How he made the rounds of park trash bins to recycle aluminum. How he stopped riding his bike in the winter because his feet were too cold without the contact with the ground. How a motel refused his money. How he went back to Ohio to settle up family affairs after his parents died because he was the responsible one. How he was sleeping rough this winter.

Now I'm writing about his absence. How nobody knows where he is.

About his storage bin.

We provide three dozen or more people a secure storage bin where they can safeguard papers, clothing, keepsakes—whatever they don't want to risk at the shelter, at a campsite or in a backpack. As long as they don't store food or drugs, we don't ask questions. As long as they actively use their storage and don't overfill the bin, they can keep it.

Abe first signed for his bin in October 2006. He hadn't used it since November. Today we emptied it. 

Someone else needs it.

Sometimes it's easy. A tangle of free store clothing can go right to the dumpster. But today was hard.

Here's what we found:

• A cap, some flannel pants, a thin jacket
• On Death and Dying, Jimmy Carter's The Virtues of Aging
• An insulated lunch pack filled with hollowed egg Christmas ornaments
• A homemade machete in a crude scabbard made of nailed together millwork
• Miscellaneous costume jewelry and an antique ivory brooch on a silver chain
• A dozen painted tiles mounted on wood that might have been a mother's collection
• Two fragile plexiglas reliquaries containing dried plants
• A Sandusky Ohio high school diploma in a red leatherette case, with a certificate for participation in varsity track.

We put this in the back storage room, in case he comes back. 

God, I hope he comes back.

------

Update

Today (April 16th) was weird. Snow falling in big flakes after months of no precipitation, and people I hadn't seen in a year or two walking through the door. In some ways, it felt like that scene at the end of Magnolia when the frogs start falling from the sky.

Anything could happen.

Late in the morning, a woman came in who said she was here to pick up someone's items. She looked like a caseworker or maybe a relative, so I let her in and asked whose stuff she'd come for.

She said Abe's name.

She had come from Montrose, about an hour south of Grand Junction, where she is a hospice volunteer. Abe is there, and has been since November when he collapsed and was found unconscious in a hotel.

"His liver has done all it can do," she said. He might have a few more months.

She was hoping to bring back some mementoes she could use to decorate his room. He had called the day center and found we had saved his things. After talking to the new director, she said, he seemed happy, but he also asked her to give him some time alone. He's struggling a bit, she said.

He'd like to come back here, she said. He misses this place. He feels like a stranger where he is, and fears maybe he's been forgotten.

But for various bureaucratic and insurance reasons, he can't be transferred to the hospice here. And the people who know him don't have the transportation to visit him there. 

He has siblings elsewhere, and though they've been estranged, it sounded like maybe they will come see him. And the hospice has wonderful volunteers like the woman I met today.

So Abe will not die alone. But neither will he die at home.

One thing I've learned from Abe and the others who return here again and again: Being houseless doesn't make a man "homeless." 

There's note going back to Montrose that tries to express that as best I can.

Shelter Report: So Tired.

I ran into a couple Minnesota guys today out here in Western Colorado. Both of them were tired.

M, 55, arrived recently after Hennepin County bought him a one-way bus ticket to Grand Junction. (That's how your community may be addressing its "homeless problem," too.)

M is a vet, a former employee of multiple state and county agencies. He may be Native American or Pacific Islander. He's also an alcoholic. When we talked, a definite scent of mouthwash filled the space between us. He had just been banned from the library for passing out in the restroom at closing time.

M was patient, cooperative and open. He's looking for work but was recently rejected from a call center job because of a misdemeanor charge back in Minnesota. He was hungry, stole a sub sandwich from the Midway WalMart and got caught.

A five dollar theft in St. Paul is dogging him out here. He's hoping to get the charge expunged.

He just got approved for Medicaid, and that will help him pay off some charges pending at the local mental health clinic. A number of our guests were able to describe the ins and outs of the system to the new guy. They've been there.

D is one of the guys who advised him. D, early twenties, comes from northern Minnesota where he had a spot of trouble. Here, his problem is also alcohol-related. He's up on a potential 5th degree felony for assaulting an officer. I've seen the cops who deal with the homeless talk to him. They seem sympathetic.

D described waking up in jail with no memory of his run-in with the police. All he remembers is thinking he would die. My sweat smelled like vodka, he said. When they gave me back my socks, they smelled like alcohol, too. I wonder why they took me to jail instead of detox. I could've died.

He has an upcoming court date and his public defender has advised a plea bargain that will get him into treatment. For now, his life is on hold, and at night he has panic attacks think about what will happen next.

C tells him not so fast. The system will get its hooks into you one way or other. It may look better than prison now, but they will own you and jerk you around for your entire probation.

C is a fifyish woman who talks as if she has a lot of experience as a victim's advocate, but she also talks about spending the other night in the park amid drug deals, partying young people, the police and sprinklers going off to discourage sleeping there.

To escape the sprinklers, she crawled into a tube in the children's playground. All she had was a baby blanket which was too small to cover her and too thin for the cool night. (Sleep outside sometime on a spring night and you'll understand how cold it can be after the sun goes down.)

Some young men there for drugs started hassling her, not realizing the legs sticking out belonged to a woman until she said, "Leave me alone. I'm old enough to be your mother," and their girl friends talked the tough guys into leaving.

B was in to mop floors for community service. He was up until 3 am working on a college paper last night and he is dragging. Last weekend, he said he walked seven miles from his place to the entrance of Colorado National Monument. 

Seven miles, dude, I was exhausted! Seven miles is a long way to walk up hill.

You walked 14 miles, I said. Unless you flew back. Seven, 14, it didn't seem to matter to B. He just knew he was beat.

A came in late, his head shaved. He'd recently had some sort of surgery to treat his seizures. He said tonight was his last night camping.

He's had two hours of sleep for the last two nights, but things are looking up. Tomorrow A goes into a rehab program. When he gets out, he can see his kids again.

You'll never see me again, he says.

And that's what we hope. People without housing need a lot of things, but rest seems in shortest supply of all .