Service Learning Log 2 - Emily Williams

Project Homeless Connect
Date of Shift: May 9, 2008
Hours worked: 7 hours

As I stood on the steps of the Ritchie Center early on Friday morning, waiting to be paired with a homeless client, I did not feel nervous at all. I listened mindlessly to the chatter of the other volunteers. Some were talking to friends about what they thought the day would be like, some dressed in blue shirts sheepishly admitted they didn’t know if they would be adequate translators, many stood silently, impatiently checking their watches and finishing the last few drops of coffee. I’d done this before, I thought, so there was no reason to be worried. As men and women spilled off the first RTD bus, the volunteer line unconsciously shifted so everyone had a better view of the clients we would be helping. The line slowly moved and finally I was introduced to J. I introduced myself and asked if he’d like to get breakfast, but he haphazardly pushed past me mumbling something about the bathroom.
As we hunted out the restrooms together I tried to tell him something about how the day would go, but I could tell he wasn’t really listening. I was afraid that maybe he would be a client with “mental disabilities” that I would have to refer to a ‘white-shirt.’ But, after we found the bathroom and got something to eat we seemed to click better as a team and I became more certain that this man wasn’t delusional, he just had his priorities. As we filled out the introductory paperwork and ate our muffins and fruit salad, J. told me that he had been homeless for about four years because of a “bad bad drug problem” as he somberly referred to it. “It’s okay though,” he assured me, “I got a good thing going here. I’ve been at the Rescue Mission for 11 months. When I get to 14, I get another job and a car. I got a good thing. When I’m done with the program they’ll get me set up in a nice house. I just really need a house for me and my wife for the next few months, she’s jumping from shelter to shelter ‘cause women aren’t allowed at the mission.” Knowing this, after breakfast we headed for the housing line.
Trekking across the Ritchie Center, J. told me more about his family. He has four kids: three daughters, two who are in their late twenties and one who is 14, and a son he hasn’t seen in years. He was about to tell me about his wife when we arrived at Housing. We waited our turn to talk to the frantic looking woman handing out numbers. When we found out our number wouldn’t be called for a couple of hours, J. decided he wanted to see the people at the SSI booth and then talk to someone in legal services. Social Security wasn’t much help, J. had already filled out all the paperwork, and the woman told him to wait for his case to be processed. I felt extremely frustrated with this answer, but J. didn’t seem to mind. I felt like the woman should have been able to do something, after all she was sitting there with a computer, what more could she need? I had to push past my frustration to realize that the all knowing “purple shirts,” were in fact volunteers and they were trying their best, but some things just can’t get done in just a few hours. J., though, gave the woman a number where he could be reached, and asked that she call him if she had any new information.
As J. and I sat at one of about 15 tables designated for “legal services” and waited for our all-knowing legal volunteers to come back with the verdict, so to speak, J. let loose. Suddenly it was as if 11 months of pent up frustration was slowly trickling out through fragmented sentences and the occasional expletive. J. had told me earlier in the day that he had been denied housing multiple times because he had a felony on his record, and some other charges too he admitted. He said his most recent run in with the law was a couple of months ago, about 8 months into the drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. “I was totally clean” he said, “but I had an aspirin in my pocket and the cop picked me up and booked me in jail. The next day they analyzed it and found that it was just an aspirin. They dropped the charges, but it’s still on there.” As we waited for our legal counsel to return with J.’s record, he told me he had had about 34 charges brought against him since he’d been living on the street. “34 charges,” I thought, “Wow! I can’t even fathom being in jail for a night.” He said being under the influence did “bad things” to him and in the same breath he pointed out another client in the field house, a girl about my own age, “I used to sell her crack,” J. said. “When she was about 12 she started coming to me three of four times a week. Ain’t that something?” In that one sentence, J. summed up our complete differences. Though we seemed to be connecting well, his comment brought me back to the world I lived in, and there was an immense distance between J.’s world. I came hurtling back to the world we were sharing for the day when he said, “Since I got in with the Rescue Mission, I’ve been clean, 11 months now.” I could tell he was very proud of this fact, but before I could congratulate him, our lawyers returned. They told J. that though they couldn’t get rid of any of the chargers he was convicted for, he could have the aspirin charge expunged if he went to a specific office at a specific time. J. looked thoroughly relieved, but I felt slightly worried about the situation. What if he didn’t go to the office? What if he couldn’t find it? I had to remind myself that I was working with a grown man who was responsible for himself. He had made it without me living on the streets, he certainly didn’t need me to hold his hand and take him to the lawyer’s office.
Our final stop for the day was housing. J. found that because his monthly AND stipend was only $236 a month, he would not have access to permanent housing, but that there might be a place for him in transitional housing. The man at the transitional housing table coincidently knew J. (as I found throughout the rest of the day, the homeless community seems to be greatly connected to one another). Since J. was already set up at the Mission, the man told him that he could get better information through his counselor there. Again, J. was pleased, I was not. “What if,” I thought, “he hadn’t been working with the Rescue Mission? Then what could they have done for him?” I let it go though, since J. was ready for lunch, and then had to get back to turn in a paper to his teacher at the Rescue Mission.
My day with J. ended on a grassy hill in front of the Ritchie Center, each of us eating our lunches out of paper sacks. J. thanked me for my help and wished me luck with my studies. “Keep your nose clean,” he told me (a phrase that I had never actually heard used before outside of 1940’s movies and books) “and don’t leave when you’ve got a good thing going.” With that, he got up and we walked our separate ways – he towards the light rail station and me back to my chance to save the world – another client. I’m not sure that I can express in words how equally inspiring and heartbreaking Friday was. There were moments where I felt that I was so much a part of the solution that there was no doubt in mind that we could solve homelessness, and we were going to do it that day while eating our sack lunches. These moments of encouragement, though, were coupled with moments of mounting disappointment when a client was rejected from permanent housing and told they must seek out another shelter. The day, complete with ups and downs, was overall an incredible experience. What touched me the most was the sheer kindness of my clients: one man refused to eat until I took the cookie that he shared with me, while another opened his package of socks to share with a man who had not received any. As I watched these small but meaningful occurrences, I realized how utterly humbling it must be to attend an event like this, to put yourself at the mercy of a group of college students and make it know, that for one reason or another you are unable to take care of yourself or your family. I can’t imagine the vulnerability some of the clients must have felt and for the number of people who came for assistance, I think it is a testament to the change that is needed in our social system. Perhaps Project Homeless Connect and Denver’s Road Home will not eradicate homelessness however maybe it is the tipping point that will inspire other organizations and different types of people to adopt homelessness as a cause.