Why We Need Places

I visited a home yesterday, which is not something I do very often while working with a predominately homeless population.

I have known Vincent for a few years now--long enough to watch him transition from frequent nights spent in a parking garage, through the application for disability benefits, all the way to the receipt of his own apartment. I have watched one further transition as well: self-sufficiency to dependency; mobility to immobility. This was the reason I was visiting Vincent today: to deliver to him his food pantry staples.

5 pounds of oatmeal
A package of salt-free rice cakes
3 rolls of toilet paper
A loaf of bread
Gatorade
Green Tea

With all of his bland, flavorless food requests, I was not expecting to open his apartment door to such a colorful, stimulating studio.

The walls were full of drawings, gifts from other people, fliers and dried flowers, strange sculptures. Plants (and consequently, dirt) littered the floor, next to stacks of books, and palates of paint. It was truly a 'studio apartment'.

Seeing Vincent in all his glory made me consider the further purposes of having our own housing. We desire to be in all our glory, whatever that means.

Some people fill their places with art and color, like Vincent.
Some people fill their places with people.
Some people want to be surrounded by order,
Or memories
Or collections (anyone who has seen my closet knows all about this).

Some people want their places uncluttered, simple, almost bare.

But most people want to decide for themselves. To extend themselves into wherever they are the most.

Vincent now seems himself, when he's in his place, throwing his being all over the floor and the shelves and the walls.

Mad World

I have always been uncomfortable with anger. It's not an emotion that I often feel (except, historically and mysteriously, with both of my brothers). When things don't go the way I wanted, or when something dangerous is closely evaded, or when someone tricks me, or when I am denied something I desire, I feel disappointed, relieved, embarrassed, or frustrated. My reaction to these feelings is usually a strangely mis-fitting pleasant attitude, an even-keel calm, some distracting humor... but rarely anger.

So, door slamming, raised voices, shaking fists and red faces were always frightful and foreign to me because I didn't understand them, and didn't know how to interpret them, accept them, or respond to them. This difficulty was amplified in my employment, where I had to sort through the meaning and motivation of being swore at, stormed out upon, and glared into the ground. I didn't take it personally, and wasn't hurt by it; if anything, I was baffled and amused. But my amusement was not constructive or helpful, so for the past 3 years, I have been observing and interpreting anger in order to react to it well, and respond to it helpfully. Today's observation brought a particularly helpful amount of understanding.

Pamela was the first person in front of my office this morning at 8 AM, with 3 tired children and an apathetic boyfriend. She immediately stated her demands (none of which I could meet (at least right away)), and towed her crew into my office with a slammed door, a raised voice, a shaking fist, and a red face. I watched with a strangely mis-fitting pleasant attitude and even-keel calm (trying to suppress my humor reflex), as she yelled at me the injustice of my inadequacies. I could see pretty clearly that it was not the lack of a 30-day Bus Pass that was boiling inside of her, but the disappointment, the embarrassment, and the frustration of a mother who felt unable to take care of her kids; a woman who was being mentally abandoned by the man who was her greatest sense of comfort and support; the child of a mother who belittled her for her dependency, even if it was temporary.

I began to understand that anger appears stronger than embarrassment or defeat. Anger is powerful, not vulnerable.

Pamela is angry because her and her 3 kids are staying in an emergency shelter, and are shooed out during the day into the elements with no transportation. She's angry because she doesn't have anywhere to go. She's angry because her boyfriend is going to leave and go back to his mama's house in Benton Harbor. She's angry because she just wants to play with her kids, to take care of them, to be able to get what she needs, to be secure, to know what will happen tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and to be able to put down her bags in a place where they won't get stolen, and feel like her kids are safe even when she is not holding all of their hands, and cook the way she loves to, and relax her muscles, and slow her mind, but she can't. So when her boyfriend leads the kids back to the waiting room and closes the door behind him...
... she lays her head on the desk and weeps.

Mark's Living

The current discussion in the waiting room revolves around the cardboard sign Mark has tucked in his shirt. You've seen it:

"Homeless and Hungry"

I called him a con-artist. (Nods and laughter).
My co-worker said she was going to beat him up with her bare hands. (More nods, more laughter).
Because we all know Mark, and we all know the validity of his first descriptor, and the complete absurdity of the second one.

Okay, Mark. Defend yourself.

(his intermittent exclaimations are edited into the following paragraph): "I don't know how they still fall for it, but it makes more money than any other sign I've held. I don't even think they think I'm hungry. If they do they must be from out of town. But it's how I make my money, it's how I make my living."

But it's a dishonest living, Mark.

"Because of this, I'm still living."

We beg to differ. How much of the money you're given goes to life-promoting things? Things that bring you closer to life instead of bringing you closer to death?

"Some."

"I don't make them give me money. I just ask. I'm not tying no one's hands up. It's still a choice."

People often ask me if they should give money to people who ask them for it on the street. It's always up to them, but I think it helps if you try to figure out why you're doing it. If you are giving money based upon an arguement presented to you, always admit the possibility that the reasons presented are false.
If you're giving it to make them go away, to ease your guilt, make them happy, then it will probably work, depending on how much you give.
If you are giving it to love someone, and to love them by giving them what they really need, then most of the time, giving them money's not going to do the trick. The problem is, though I believe that you will love most people best by not giving them money, you will not show them love in a way that they will understand and receive it. This is an issue I can't claim to have solved, but the following advice is something I believe in:
Stop walking, look people in the eye, ask their name and give them yours. Whether you give anything else is completely up to you.

Mutually recognize each other's humanity. Everything we do should probably start from there.
I volunteered a few other descriptors for Mark's sign. My favorite was:

"Homeless and Human"

He thought it was okay, but that it probably wouldn't bring in as much cash.

Anyone Can

My co-worker and I once watched Gerald walk down the street, bracing himself against the brick wall in between stumbles, hardly able to hold onto his bag-covered bottle... it took him five minutes to travel each shop-length... and we said "If Gerald can make it out of here alive, anyone can."

He asked me to help him fill out a medical examination with him once, since he couldn't see through his greasy, chin-length blonde bangs, and since he couldn't see anyway, or maneuver a writing utensil. We came to the question "How much alcohol do you drink each day?" and in between hysterical fits of laughter, he finally manages to tell me that seriously, it was usually more than 2 gallons, depending on how much he could pan-handle.

Even his drinking buddies tried to refuse him a drink sometimes: "Gerry, even though we have to watch you die, we're not going to help you."

-----

We hadn't seen Gerald in a while, and we assumed the worst, but there was rumors going around that he went to rehab (which were usually met by sarcasm: "Like he could walk that far.") We still talked about him, thought about him, wondered about him, hoping the rumors were true.

Last week, a man walked through the door: clean shaven, hair cut, clean clothes, walking straight, and in clear, un-slurred speech said to us: "Merry Christmas. I love you." He gave us each a hug, gave us each a wrapped Christmas present with the strict instructions not to open it until Christmas morning, and left.

We looked at each other in disbelief and said, "Anyone can."

Door, way

This morning I walked to work in the blizzard because I knew people were sleeping in it.

Yesterday, I tried to convince all of the regular campers, the die-hard-below-the-bridge-dwellers, to stay inside for the night. I told Gary and The Girl that they would only have to be apart for 10 hours, and they would be unconcious for most of them. I told Mr. Bentley he could make it a night without a drink. In insufficient Spanish, I argued with Guillermo that sleeping around a lot of other dudes wasn't so bad, and they would leave him alone. The funny thing was, they all seemed to be trying to talk each other into staying in as well--either caring more for each other than they did for themselves, or claiming that their reasons were better, that their addictions and phobias were stronger.
When I left, I hadn't pursuaded anyone.

So I walked to work this morning, with one specific detour in mind: Guillermo's doorway. I imagined finding him blue and cold and breathless, half-covered in snow. I imagined this so vividly and consistently that by the time I was on his block, in front of his hole, I just stood in the wind and the snow and stared at the mass of blue and white blankets, hardly believing he was there. Standing on the sidewalk, in the way of the relentless weather, I was so mad that he did this, that he insisted on staying here, that he was so stubborn and foolish. And then I stepped in his doorway, around the bottles and the box of doughnuts, and a shoe, and it was... warm. I turned my back to the door and looked out at the blowing snow and realized how safe a doorway could feel, especially when it was yours, and just yours. I bent down close enough to make sure Guillermo was snoring, and left him to sleep.

The Rights That Come With a Roof

Sam's always hated Ron. It's not that unusual; love and hate flow here like they do anywhere else (except people may be more vocal about it here). It was a bit innappropriate how often he would come up to our floor, swagger around with his black-santa-sack full of who-knows-what and talk about how much he hates Ron... but our ideas of what's normal and what's not have changed to the point of being very used to things like this. He was always willing to pause in his rant to greet me (Hey bay-be! I sho' do love ya, bay-be!)

Sam's mental illness has been escalating lately, though. Last time I walked past him on my way in and said "Good morning," he just looked at me, open-mouthed, wild-eyed, and threw his arms in the air as if answering that greeting was far too trivial a task for someone who had his thoughts racing through their brain. Sam's anger was now targeted towards anyone close enough to point a finger at (You kille' my whole family! I'm go burn down yo' house!)

It was soon after that Sam became a danger, not only to himself, but those around him. So many of the people I have met since working here have fallen victim to the twisted grip of mental illness, especially without many places that can assist in paying for psychotropic medication. Sam started attacking people with his fists instead of his usual bomb-threats, and lately, has hardly been discriminating whose jaw they hit.

This weekend, Sam lost it--he beat Joel (peaceful, pony-tailed Joel) until blood flowed from his face faster than obsenities flowed out of Sam's. Of course, we called the police in Joel's (and the rest of the public's) defense, and this was their response:

"I'm sorry, but if it's a homeless person on a homeless person, there's nothing we can do."

I've heard a lot of strange and baffling ideas of the rights of those who are currently without mortgages and rental agreements, but not one of us can make sense of this one. The best I could do was take Joel and his wife into my office today and apologize to him, telling him that we are paying attention, that we want the best of Sam and for him, and we know what happened, and we wish we weren't so powerless when it comes to making our sidewalk safe. Joel just smiled through his black and blue eyes, because he had just recieved word that one of the subsidized housing properties had a space for him and his wife.

"We're going to get a place, Anna. Then we'll be somebody."

I Love Paulie, His Staples, His Racoon Eyes

Paulie got so drunk last week, he blacked out in his apartment and had to get staples in his head. He also evidently fell asleep in the sun with his sunglasses on, because when he came to talk to me, his face was impressively tan with the exception of white circles around his eyes.

"It's not all fun and games anymore, Anna. This is for real now, I guess."

Most people wouldn't describe a life of homelessness as "fun and games" at any point, especially not at the beginning. But Paulie is 19, and spent the first year after being kicked out of his parent's house in Holland volunteering to take out the trash at Tini Bikini's so he could hang out with some of the girls. That was fun.

Then he got bored, so he got a job. He got a job by smiling. He's cute.
He worked at the Bistro and got to eat the "best food ever. All the time. You would like it." That was fun.

Then he decided to go back to school, so he applied and recieved a Pell grant. He registered for four classes at Community College, dropped three, and barely attended one. Not as fun.

Then he got sick of sleeping by other dudes--older dudes who weren't as good at gelling their hair as he was. So he applied for an apartment at Verne Barry Place, subsidized government housing reserved for those with physical and mental disabilities. Paulie turned in his ADD diagnosis, and got a nice, newly furnished, studio apartment for free. The girls from Tini Bikini's weren't allowed to come up and visit, though, so he got bored.

So he started drinking again (he never stopped drinking, but at least he got distracted during the daytime). There's a rule downtown that any sort of voucher (bus tickets, Degage Dollars, food stamps) were worth half their price in cash. Instead of $150 in shrimp and potato chips (Paulie's favorite foodstamp expenditures), he could get at least $70 in alcohol. Sounds like fun.

But last week, sporting staples in his head, Paulie smiles less. Time to do something about it, he guesses. Time to look into detox, rehab, maybe a more supportive group of friends.

But this week, he forgot the fear he felt when he woke up on the floor of his apartment, his head bleeding. This week, he's back to his MP3 player, asking me to look up the dates of the concerts at Van Andel.

This week, I hope that the love I show Paulie (I love Paulie) is not as helpless as it feels.