Across the Great Divide

Keeping It Positive.

Last Wednesday was crazy, with more than the usual drama. Most people come to the Day Center to get away from conflict; some come to create it.

New configurations of conflict and fresh threats erupted. Former assaulters and victims buddied up to each other. One woman who sat apart reading a book was about ready to pop her cork by the end of the morning just from contacting the stress.

One of my favorite wild men who just got out of jail for a probation violation showed me baby pictures of his son taken in jail, the mother's wrist handcuffed to the bed. He hasn't seen the kid and probably never will.

Another I hadn't seen this year made the Blotter twice this week and detox at least once. When I left the Day Center, he was outside straddling his bicycle, which still bore the GJPD property tag. I thanked him for being considerate of the taxpayers by enabling the police to reuse the tag next time he goes to jail. 

He and I can laugh about these things. Others don't see his humor or appreciate his boisterous intelligence. He must cross someone's boundary ten times a day. The purple smear under his eye came from a beat-down in the park.

***

Scott and Robin, the couple I wrote about last week, were flush with good news. Scott had landed a 10-dollar-an-hour job as a security guard and caretaker with the storage company where they had spent their last dollars. Robin had just heard from her previous employer that he had been contacted for a reference.

Over the weekend, they had attended a church nearby one of the storage locations and felt welcomed. Scott said he was volunteering at the thrift store run by the church.

I'm keeping it positive, he said.

***

Darius asked if we had a fax he could use. He has applied at a local construction company that's hiring for the spring, but he's also sending an application to a Seattle company that runs fishing boats in Alaskan waters. 

When I handed him a pencil to complete the application, he gave me a look and said, "I'm surprised at you offering me a pencil. A pencil is not professional. Give me a pen."

He's a fit 36, a handsome African American who has worked a variety of trades. Darius really likes it here in Grand Junction, but he's having difficulty getting his feet under him. Right now he's staying in the shelter overflow hosted by a local church during winter months.

I want an apartment, he said, but I need a lump sum to get started. I can't just go to work at McDonald's and make enough. Whenever I do day labor, they garnish half my check. There's not enough take-home to pay the rent.

He owes back child support for children he hasn't seen for 15 years. Until that's paid off, he'll have to camp or stay in a shelter. The Alaskan fishing boats represent his chance to accumulate enough to pay off his arrears.

He admits to making bad decisions in the past. When he was younger he ran up a stack of tickets for failing to register his car. He had insurance and the car payments were current but something about paying the registration fee bugged him. Every time the cops saw him, they wrote another ticket.

Eventually he paid.

It was stupid, I know, he said. Those fees help pay for our roads. I can't explain it now.

On his intake form, he was reluctant to share much information. One line asked for his social security number. Is it so you can get funding? he asked.

That's all it's for.

He filled it in.

I don't have a family contact. I don't even know where my wife is, he said.

It's just so we know who to call in case something happens to you, I said. It can be anyone. 

There's an ex-girl friend in San Diego that he's on good terms with, he said. He talks to her a couple times a week. Just funny stuff. This and that. It's probably never going beyond that. He's still in the process of finding himself. 

He puts down the name of the San Diego woman. In case we have to call someone. In case there's someone who would want to know.  

***

When I started writing these posts years ago, I was volunteering at a shelter and I wanted to label them separately from the other content. My volunteer work has moved out of the shelter environment  and most of what I post concerns homelessness now. 

So with this post, I'm retiring "Shelter Report" in the headline but will continue to tag the posts with the "Home & Homeless" category.

Shelter Report: "A Safe Place to Land."

Scott and Robin came in looking for a shower. They were too late, the mark of first-timers.

This was their first full day in town after arriving last night from Parachute, a small town of 1,100 people on I-70 about 45 miles from here. Parachute's slogan is "A Safe Place to Land."

Until this month, they had been employed at restaurants in Glenwood Springs, a resort town another 45 miles upriver. Glenwood is the town where I grew up. It's beautiful, set in a narrow valley with a renowned hot springs. However, there's a shortage of housing at any price.

Affordable housing is an issue all around the Vail-Aspen corridors. Service workers like Scott and Robin can't afford to live where they're employed. That means commuting from places like Parachute, a town that once was going to be the epicenter of the oil shale boom.

Correct that. It was going to be the epicenter of a bunch of oil shale booms.*

Once Robin and Scott lost their jobs in Glenwood, their low rent wasn't such a good deal.

It happened this way, as it often does, a downward spiral that starts with a vehicle that breaks down and can't easily be repaired. They can't get to work without their car and they can't fix their car without work. 

Parachute has opened a few legalized marijuana shops but it doesn't have a grocery store. The main industry seems to be serving as a highway rest stop, selling gas and feeding travelers. But those restaurants are mom and pop operations or gas station one-holers. There were no jobs to be had locally.

Actually, Parachute has a sort of grocery.

They were scraping by looking for work in the next town, Rifle, 16 miles away. One day Robin caught a ride there but ended up walking back; no one would stop and pick her up.

A few days ago their power went out. Scott called the power company to find out if it was a general outage. The company said, your power's been cut off. You're behind on your bill. He said, we just paid it 12 days ago. You owe $600, the company said.

How can that be?

They'd made the mistake of paying half the electric bill to a landlord who lived in the other half of the property. He hadn't been paying the bill.

That's when they decided they had to get to a bigger town.

They'd spent the night in their minivan after putting the last of their cash down on a storage unit for their belongings. (The owners let them park inside the gates overnight.)

Their first stop in the morning was the Workforce Center to get a line on potential food service jobs. (Scott is a cook.) Robin applied for food stamps, "though I hope we won't need them. We never have before."

By 11:00 it was too late for a shower before hitting the street to put in applications, so tomorrow they'll be back at the Day Center early. They seemed optimistic.

See you tomorrow, they said.

I'm only here on Wednesdays, I said.

Okay, we'll see you next week.

Or maybe they won't. Maybe this town will be better than the last one and they'll find work quick.

A guy can hope.

__________

 

*When I was kid in the '50s, there were street signs in the desert, put there by speculators who envisioned a monorail running from Grand Valley (as the town was called then) to the top of the Grand Mesa.

In the late '60s oil and gas producers experimented with an underground nuclear explosion to release oil from the formations in nearby Rulison. That didn't catch on, either. 

In the early '80s the big oil producers built worker housing on nearby Battlement Mesa for the next boom that was supposed to happen. The Colony Oil Shale Project shut down suddenly in May, 1982, laying off more than 2,000 workers on Black Sunday, and sending all of western Colorado into a depression that last for years.

 

The worker housing was later marketed to retirees from out of state. Some of those buyers are disturbed to learn they only control the surface rights to the land. Gas wells have been showing up in the neighborhood again.

 

Shelter Report: Temporary Insanity.

Last week was so quiet at the Day Center all I had to write about were the dogs, so I took a break.

Today was so crazy I don't know where to start. 

It's Ash Wednesday and, from all available evidence at the Day Center, National Spill Your Coffee Day.

JE, who I've known for years, usually comes in, pulls a book out of his pocket, reads for an hour over coffee and then takes off. This morning he came in (still?) drunk, talked loud and barely managed to stay out of trouble. He left late, then returned for the gloves he'd forgotten.

JC, usually talkative and good for plenty to write about, said not a word to me today.

Vin, an African-American drinker who is not popular with the staff (he does have a chip on his shoulder) never causes me trouble. Apparently, though, he failed one of the attitude checks in the back and was shown the door. He tried to provoke the staffer who kicked him out, to no avail. 

A new guy, call him Joe, showed up and blocked the entrance for about twenty minutes unloading his suitcase to display various shirts he had for sale. Joe and another guest negotiated at length, discussing color coordination, ironing, how much money Joe owed the buyer already. (The shirts were good quality, and he seemed to know the retail prices.) A deal was finally struck for five dollars, then eased up to seven.

Joe eventually signed in and brought in his suitcase and duffle. He is new here, not long out of prison, and recently from Denver. Before the morning was over it was apparent he didn't have to pay for his bus ticket here.

Joe was wound up. It was difficult to tell which substances might be providing the extra twist. He's long-haired, Hispanic, gay, addicted and flamboyant. Not the greatest combo for the room. Blue collar males who live in close quarters with strangers do not tend to have the most enlightened attitudes toward homosexuality.

He went around propositioning guests who did not want to play. Finally, one flared up, called him an effing faggot, and a circle of staff formed. Joe protested that he didn't do anything (and he didn't, if you consider soliciting drugs and unwilling boyfriends protected speech).

He said he was calling the cops but called a cab instead. The director asked him to wait for it outside and for his trouble was berated by Joe for wearing ugly pants and shoes. 

There was multilayered drama among the women, too, with two sides forming around a feud that involved a woman who wasn't there, which led to a bus assault on her daughter the day before. The antagonists avoided each other while their seconds talked behind backs. Third parties expressed willingness to help—either to fan the flames or put them out.

It was hard to tell.

A woman said she had been robbed last night. Everything had been taken out of her tent, which was new last week, and was left in the snow. The only thing missing was the tent.

Shawn comes in early, sleeps in a chair by me all morning and is the last to leave. He waits and uses the rest room after it's been cleaned. 

Getting ready to leave, I said, "Office hours are about over, Shawn."

He said, "Elroy."

I had trouble processing.

"Nobody calls me Shawn except my mother."

I've hardly ever seen anyone talk to him.

"Today's her birthday."