SAVING
GRACE
No
one's turned away.
Story
by Aria Seligmann - Photos
by Linda Smogor
Outside a nondescript building at the
far end of a fenced complex on 1st Street's industrial grayness,
a group of women sit on a wooden deck, smoking. The cloud of cigarette
smoke's as thick as the fog that settles in over the railroad tracks,
no longer visible even from this short distance on a shrouded late
November night.
A woman arrives at the gate, pushes
through it, tentatively approaches the door. Another gets up, holds
open the door for her, asks, "This your first time?" The woman nods.
"Come on," says the door holder, "I'll show you what to do."
Up a flight of stairs, inside a large
room patchworked with shiny brown tables and chairs, the woman is
ushered to a desk staffed by one of several program volunteers,
homeless women who work long shifts in exchange for a small stipend
and their own room. "Read these rules and sign the form," the volunteer
tells her. The woman will abide by the rules and submit to a TB
test within seven days.
Her belongings are tagged and placed
in the baggage room, a shelf-lined closet where each woman is allowed
to keep up to three bags of possessions, safely locked up.
"Don't leave any medications laying
around," she's told.
Then she settles into a hard wood chair.
She's at the Eugene Mission, where a promise of a bed, food and
Gospel is offered to everyone, where no one is turned away (except
those obviously under the influence who refuse a ride to Buckley
House).
The Mission was founded in 1956 by
Christian businessman Dick York. It began serving women in 1979
and currently contains three separate buildings: one with 218 beds
for transient men and 85 beds for male Program Volunteers; one with
32 beds for mothers and children and one with 56 beds for women.
 |
|
Program
Volunteer Susan Perkins
|
 |
|
Amanda
|
 |
|
Teresa
|
 |
|
Christy
|
If the beds fill up, mattresses are
laid under tables or in the hallway so it's never too full. Especially
for the women, the opportunity for safe shelter is a blessing.
Running the Mission costs $1.4 million
per year, with money raised solely through private donations and
funds earned through the collection of recycled newspapers dropped
off in Eugene Mission boxes around town. The Mission also relies
on food and clothing donations from individuals and organizations.
Many grocery stores drop off their excess; many gardeners do too,
come summer. Three meals per day are served. Clothes are handed
out.
When the new woman arrives, the others
are waiting in the common room for dinner. They sit at tables reading
books, flipping through magazines, knitting, working on puzzles,
talking. Some doze in their chairs. Some stare straight ahead.
Someone walks through the room trailing
a scent of perfume behind her and suddenly an overwhelming cacophony
of hacking begins. Many Mission women suffer from asthma, allergies
and serious respiratory illness. Over the din, Assistant Manager
Susan King shouts, "We call it the Mission croup."
Flu's gone around twice this month.
Some of the coughing's due to that; some to heavy smoking. King
goes off to find the culprit who's broken the no-perfume rule —
she must be someone new.
No one at the Mission asks anyone why
they're here. That's private. And the reasons are as varied as the
people themselves. Mental illness. Addictions. Often just hard times.
Twenty-year-old Amanda is here because
her parents got mad she didn't have a job and kicked her out. She
applied at the Bon Marché, they told her to keep checking back
and she has, but no luck. "All my parents want me to do is get a
job and get responsible, then I can move back in."
Teresa has been here three and a half
weeks. She was living in Sweet Home when the roof of her rented
house caved in. Mold had built up. Inside, she says "there were
mushrooms growing up through the carpet." She didn't have money
to find a new place and doesn't want to disturb her son in Yachats
who's about to get married. "I've got family in Idaho but they're
poor and don't have extra room."
The mold from her old place gave her
a liver disease and she's concerned because the Mission has a mold
problem, too, and she's feeling pretty sick.
Another woman who didn't want her name
used is going to LCC and doing a work internship but isn't getting
paid. She whips out her wallet and shows off photos of two small
children, ages one and two. Her husband and kids are living with
her mother-in-law, who asked her to leave because they don't get
along. "As soon as my husband finds a job, we're going to get our
own place."
Dinnertime. The women line up. Before
they leave, King leads them in prayer. She begins reading First
John 4 and ends on line 8: "He who is not loving knew not God, for
God is love." She then adds, "We pray for each lady, for her needs,
and to take the sickness out of this place."
The cafeteria's in the men's building.
The men are out of sight, except for the ones cooking and serving
food. Inside the bright yellow room, a sign reading "The Lord is
my shepherd I shall not want" dominates. Each woman grabs a tray,
a fork and a spoon. No knives. The men make little eye contact with
the women and are not allowed to talk to them, except to ask, "Meat
loaf? Scalloped potatoes? Vegetables? Bearnaise?"
"What's that?" asks Amanda.
"Sauce to go over your vegetables."
"No thanks." She picks up a bottle
of ketchup and pours it over her plate.
Each woman grabs a soda, a glass of
milk or water and heads to a table, which has a loaf of bread, butter
and jam. The mothers and children are already there. The talk is
light, easy banter. Some women don't talk at all.
No one is allowed to get up. No seconds.
"We have to keep it from being chaos," says King.
After dinner the women go back to their
building. Many remain outside, smoking, visiting each other or their
boyfriends, fiancées or husbands who are staying in the men's
building. On the deck, they're talking politics. "It's ridiculous
how homelessness is treated in Eugene," says one woman. "It's not
a crime. We just need help."
"We need job training," says another.
"Traveler's right," says another. "They
can find money for a library. Why not us?"
Another named Christy, agrees. "I had
an apartment and a job in Springfield. Then I lost my job. That's
why I'm here. Nothing more."
She stands up and gestures to make
her point. "It's not us versus them," she explains. "It's we, the
people."
Inside, some women sign up for their
required daily shower. There's some time to kill before mandatory
chapel services at
7 pm.
The chapel's downstairs in what used
to be an apartment. Wooden chairs line up row upon row facing the
kitchen. The men get ordained ministers, the women get laypeople,
students, other volunteers from various churches. "Tonight's speaker
had to cancel, so there's a video," King announces. "It's Joyce
Meyer, Miserable Sinners and Miserable Saints.
"Oh, that's a good one," says one woman.
"Yeah, she's great," says another.
The video shows Meyer, who looks more
like a modern career woman than evangelical preacher, in an attractive
purple suit talking to a packed convention hall in New Orleans.
Saints and sinners are both miserable, she asserts, because they
don't understand grace. Her presentation is lively, entertaining,
and she only reads from the bible directly a couple of times.
When Meyer asks, "Can someone give
Jesus a big hand for a minute?" a smattering of women sitting in
the chapel clap. During the video the coughing and hacking again
intensifies. The mold is even worse in the basement.
(Assistant Director Lynn Antis says
the mold problem should be fixed by the addition of two new exhaust
fans in the upstairs bathroom, but the electrician is a month behind
schedule and hasn't gotten there yet.)
Some complain about mandatory chapel,
but King says, "The mission was started by a Christian man. We share
the Gospel because we believe it. But we're not forcing anyone to
receive it."
During the video, some women nod off
in their chairs, others pay attention, some lean their heads against
the wall. Many are tired, others are sick, most are both.
When the video's over, King says "thank
you" and the women get up and go upstairs. It's time for bed registry
and a snack. Tonight it's day old chocolate-covered doughnuts from
a grocery store.
While the women snack, watch TV and
visit, a woman approaches the volunteer staffing the desk. "There's
a guy outside sitting on the curb. He's trying to sell drugs. He's
drunk and he's got needles."
The volunteer calls over to the men's
building, relays the report and hangs up.
"They'll take care of it," she tells
the woman. The woman wanders away, muttering, "That's pretty scary."
Each woman is assigned a bed and is
only allowed to take a see-through plastic bag upstairs (to prevent
carrying cigarettes, knives or drugs to bed). In the bathroom, each
woman is handed a towel, a small condiment cup of conditioning shampoo
and a clean Mission nightgown to put on.
Some have chores to do. The first three
nights at the Mission are free, then guests either pay a $2 bed
fee or work. The Mission calls it "work therapy," a way to get back
into a routine, up at a certain time with something to do. A supervisor
to report to, a shared goal accomplished by working with others.
"We find something to do for anyone who wants to work," says Antis.
Amanda doesn't have money so she works.
She's done "just about every chore there is to do," and tonight
it's changing the sheets. New arrivals get clean sheets and everyone's
are changed once a week.
"I'm hoping I get a bottom bunk tonight,"
she says, pointing to one. "I want that one because it's sturdy."
Three rooms contain bunk beds lined
up dormitory style. They're all covered with bright new handmade
quilts donated by local church women's groups. "I worry when they
die," says King, running her fingers along a bright patchwork bedcovering.
"Who's going to teach the younger ladies how to do it?"
Lights out is promptly at 10. Wake
up is 6 am sharp. At 7 am, a light breakfast is served in the kitchen.
Then they're on their own.
The men have outside job opportunities,
such as landscaping, cleaning up truck spills or unloading trucks,
but the women don't get work or job training. Bus tokens are only
given for medical appointments, so transportation is an issue. But
Mission staff will help guests fill out job applications and will
refer them to outside sources for food stamps, welfare and Section
8 housing.
Mostly, women are encouraged to find
their own way, but if they've been there for close to a year, the
maximum time allowed, King says the staff will help them locate
other sources of help.
Staff will also provide Christian counseling.
"We ask people where they're at in their relationship with Christ,"
says Antis. Mission staff believe that turning one's life over to
Christ, engaging in work therapy and, since many at the Mission
have drug and alcohol problems, living in an environment free of
those substances will help people get on their feet.
"I wish I had the budget to be able
to more directly deal with the drug problems," says Antis. "But
no agency is able to deal with it. I was very disappointed when
Passages (a drug treatment center) closed down."
And with more budget cuts looming for
public agencies in the coming months, Antis is worried.
"I don't know that any of us know exactly
where the numbers are going to land," he says. "But we do know that
it's going to affect the homeless community in a bad way and it
will affect the Mission, of course."
A
ROOM AT THE INN
Keeping
familes warm and dry, safe and sound.
By
Bobbie Willis
It's difficult to reconcile the tiny-ness
of the child with the volume of spaghetti dinner she has thrown
up all along the hallway of the church youth center that is her
home for the night. The youth center is part of the Interfaith Shelter
developed in partnership with First Place Family Center and St.
Vincent de Paul to provide overnight shelter and meals for homeless
families with young children.
The child, Mandy (name has been changed),
is four years old with big, dark eyes, no front teeth, a clear,
small voice declaring, "It was my birthday the other day," and,
"I'm going into kindergarten," and "Oh, my tummy kinda hurts…
." She tries to find her mother, tries to find the bathroom, but
the spaghetti supper and the stomach flu she's been fighting two
weeks now win out.
Mom is trying to put Mandy's baby sister
to sleep. When she hears the commotion, she rushes with baby in
arms to find watery-pink puddles of vomit in the hallway. Mandy's
clothes are soiled, there's nowhere to bathe her, and the baby begins
to fuss. There are eight or nine families at the shelter tonight
with kids hedging toward then backing away from the puke.
In a sudden flurry of excitement, people
move in to help — Mandy's dad finds a mop and bucket; someone
roots out a jug of disinfectant; someone else finds clean towels
and runs warm water in the bathroom sink. Two or three people clean
up what they can gingerly with paper towels.
In twenty minutes, Mandy is as clean
as the towels and sink will allow, and she is warm in pink pajamas;
the hallway smells pine-y fresh; Mandy's mom and dad are left with
a pile of wet, puke-y clothes and towels, not to mention childen
who still need to be tucked in for the night.
The families sleep in two large Sunday
school classrooms that have been converted into very basic living
quarters: on the floor lay vinyl-covered matresses dressed with
clean sheets and industrial wool blankets; fabric-covered screens
try for some semblance of privacy between each family's set of matresses
— screened-off areas are considered rooms.
One boy, maybe five or so, has befriended
another boy a little older. Wanting to bunk with his friend, the
littler boy bleats, "Mama, can I spend the night at his house?"
"No, no," his mother shushes. "You
have to sleep in your own room," which is almost painfully ironic,
such talk of houses and rooms. But with the buzz of all these families
living under one temporary roof, nobody has the time or energy to
notice things like irony.
Interfaith Shelter program is distinguished
— in the model of First Place — by its commitment to
families: parent or parents with children less than 18 years of
age. The program provides homeless families with 30 days of overnight
shelter and, ideally, the time to establish a more stable, independent
living situation.
It started winter of 1990, when a small
group of faith centers came together, deciding something had to
be done about the situation of homeless families in Eugene. The
group has since grown to encompass about 50 community faith centers.
Volunteer power now allows the shelter to be housed in a different
facility nearly every week of the year, putting no unfair burden
on any one organization. Those faith centers who have the space
open their doors to set up the shelter. Those who don't have the
space contribute instead by coordinating volunteers who cook hot
dinners and breakfasts for the families and others who stay overnight
in case of emergency.
Every Monday, there's a "family meeting"
at First Place, a debriefing where Assistant Director Tim Rockwell
goes over the house rules for the new night facility. Night Shelter
Coordinator John Kreklow has spent the day, as he does every Monday,
moving the shelter from the last church to the new one. He stays
with the families until 10 pm, when the overnight volunteers go
on duty.
The families caravan to the shelter
around 5 pm — some in their own cars, others in the First
Place van. They have supper at 6 pm, then family activities before
the children's bedtime. The grownups stay up later, stepping outside
often for cigarettes and conversation.
Everyone is in bed by 11 pm. The flu
and cold season is magnified in such close quarters, and the night-quiet
is punctuated by a houseful of hacking coughs, soggy sniffles and
stomach-bug trips to the bathroom.
If home life is something woven, it
takes just a snag for everything to come unraveled. These families
remember the snags: For a few of them, it was addiction-related.
For others, it was insurmountable medical costs. For still others,
it was marital problems. Interfaith Shelter gives them time to regroup,
time to figure out how to darn things back together. Two young mothers
talk about possible jobs that would provide income and time to look
after the children. One man suggests the best dollar stores and
pawn shops to make their little bits of cash go as far as possible.
They add personal touches where they
can: A woman decorates the cloth screen of her family's room with
batiks and postcards. They take pride in possession where they can:
One man has a blue electric guitar and amp — on the lowest
volume, he rocks out a favorite Van Halen song after the children
have gone to bed.
Still, the homesickness is palatable.
One mother cries every day remembering her house. There's a set
of twin brothers, maybe nine or so. In quiet moments something passes
across their faces, something that says, "I want to go home." But
everyone here tucks away the homesickness, accepts the community's
help and tries to figure out the next step. They settle in for the
night on floors of churches and Sunday school classrooms —
warm and dry, safe and sound.
A
HAND & A BLANKET
CAHOOTS
brings the homeless in off the streets.
By
Michele Taylor
Pedestrians rush past a homeless woman
lying face down in a doorway. Winter winds drive wet leaves into
her matted hair. Is she dead? Is she asleep? Maybe she's just drunk?
The Crisis Assistants Helping Out on the Streets, or CAHOOTS, team
cautiously approaches to find out.
CAHOOTS operates under the direction
of the White Bird Clinic, a nonprofit clinic that was established
in the '70s to address the medical and psychosocial needs of Eugene
residents caught up in the counter-culture revolution, says Clinic
Director David Zeiss. For more than 30 years, White Bird has offered
24-hour crisis care to anyone who has walked in the door.
 |
|
"I
sleep wherever I can find a spot, " says David Payton.
|
In 1989, the clinic and the Eugene Police Department
began a partnership to assist people who couldn't get to White Bird
or other treatment facilities on their own, says Zeiss. EPD funded
the CAHOOTS van to let medics and social workers transport people
to shelters instead of having the police dump them in jail. Skilled
social workers would do the job with more compassion than some officers,
says Lt. Rick Siel. The partnership has conserved police resources
by freeing up officers to respond to calls they are trained to deal
with, he adds.
Pairs of CAHOOTS staff hit Eugene's
streets from 1 pm to 1 am every day of the week, responding to 450
calls per month. CAHOOTS handles any nonviolent crisis situation,
but more than half of their calls concern homeless people, like
the woman in the doorway.
The first step in helping her is to
treat her with dignity, says Heidi Schultz, a social worker and
medic who staffs the van. There's no shouting across long distances
to call attention to her. Schultz and her CAHOOTS partner will calmly
rouse the client and ask if she needs help. When she comes to, the
team moves closer and squats down to her level. They help her sit
up. The medic asks if she's injured, while the social worker evaluates
her emotional state.
If the woman requires medical attention,
the CAHOOTS team will take her to Sacred Heart Hospital. If she's
posing no threat to herself or anyone else, she can stay put or
get a ride to the Eugene Mission. If drugs or alcohol are the problem,
the woman has the option to go to the Buckley House detoxification
center. If the woman is having a mental health breakdown, she could
go to the Royal Avenue Program, a temporary shelter for the mentally
disabled, for help.
Homeless persons typically have drug
and alcohol problems and suffer from mental disabilities at the
same time, says Schultz. The CAHOOTS team helps them decide what
kind of treatment they need at that moment, and to bring them to
the appropriate facility. "We provide a service to people when change
isn't an option," says Schultz.
 |
|
CAHOOTS
staff Heidi Schultz & Jerry Lippold.
|
"We treat people no on else loves,"
says Bob Richards, the director of Buckley House. Staff there will
secure the woman's belongings, issue her a mat, a pillow and a blanket,
and let her sleep. When she wakes up, there's soup and juice available.
The CAHOOTS staff typically drops off 10 clients per day, says Richards.
People need a clean, safe place to sober up, where they won't be
attacked or ripped off.
The Royal Avenue Program runs a similar
service for homeless people in the midst of mental health crises.
The CAHOOTS van typically brings in 18 persons per month to Royal
Avenue. "We offer a 24/7 service: meals, short-term housing, case
management and general counseling," says Program Manager Dean Schlecht.
People stay anywhere between four and 30 days, and staff members
will seek permanent housing for the homeless. But every month, five
to 10 people move to the Mission or camp on the streets, says Schlecht.
"We have several 'frequent fliers,'"
says Schultz. "Some of them I adore. They're charismatic and endearing.
I look forward to seeing them." She says it's wrong to think that
all homeless people are dangerous. She says she feels safe around
them and has no need to carry a weapon. "The most valuable thing
we can do for them is respect them," she says.
And what about the woman in the doorway?
If she's outside the Eugene city limits, she's on her own because
the CAHOOTS van does not serve any other towns. If she's in Eugene,
the CAHOOTS staff will give her health and harm-reduction choices.
"But we're only as helpful as the other services that we work with,"
says Schultz.
Some people fall between the cracks
and have nowhere to go. If the woman has a son over 12 years old,
she can't stay at the Mission because the boy is too old to be in
the female residences, but too young to stay with the men. If she's
physically disabled, she can't stay at the Mission at all, since
there is no access there. "Sometimes we just give these people a
blanket and walk away," says Schultz.
SLEEPLESS
IN EUGENE
Homeless
fight for right to rest.
By
Alan Pittman
If you're homeless in
Eugene, it's illegal to sleep, or even go to the bathroom.
An estimated 3,000 homeless people in the local area (about a third
children) have to sleep and go to the bathroom. Local shelters have
room for only about 1,200 people.
The problem is only getting worse.
With the economic downturn and cuts in state social services programs,
"We're going to be looking at a tripling of the homeless people
in Eugene," says Melissa Mona of the Eugene Homeless Initiative.
"It's a huge problem, and it's getting
worse," says Richie Weinman, housing manager for the city of Eugene.
The recession left Oregon with one
of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, thousands have
lost jobs and may lose their homes. Unemployment insurance for many
of those people expires next month. At the same time, the state
budget crisis is slashing social programs. Already the state has
cut $150,000 in emergency rent payment assistance for the area.
Deeper cuts, including the closure of shelters for the mentally
ill, are expected next year.
While Mona and Weinman agree there's
a worsening problem, they don't agree on what should be done. The
Homeless Initiative is pushing for the city to temporarily allow
homeless people to sleep outside while supporting the creation of
an autonomous "Dignity Village" of homeless campers based on a Portland
model. They also want the city to explore creating a new shelter
for single adults. To pressure the city, the group staged a protest
outside the county courthouse this fall, including a 20-day tree
sit.
Weinman says the Homeless Initiative's
ideas are politically and practically difficult. City officials
have reacted to the protest with hostility. City Councilor Pat Farr
e-mailed homeless advocates in September, "I bristle at the suggestion
that, as a Eugene City Councilor, I have any way attacked the homeless,"
Farr wrote, citing past council efforts to help the homeless. "Unfortunately,
some people who possess the ability to take care of themselves choose
not to, and that depletes the resources that should be devoted to
the people who can't."
Mayor Jim Torrey added to the e-mail
discussion, "I agree completely with your [Farr's] comments." Torrey
said he "absolutely opposed" council discussion of the city doing
more for the homeless. He said homeless advocates should go to the
state and the county for money since Eugene was already "the local
government leader in efforts to assist the homeless."
The homeless protest ended after police
fenced off a large portion of the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza
in front of the courthouse. Homeless activists complained that police
were harassing protesters with petty tickets and confiscating their
property.
Mona was cited for delivering food
to the fenced-off tree sitter whom she says the city was trying
to starve out. Later, she says, the City Council retaliated by taking
the unusual step of not reappointing her to the city Human Rights
Commission.
While Portland has allowed a Dignity
Village and is building homeless shelters, Weinman says the city
of Eugene has allowed homeless car camping in about 60 church and
city spaces and has focused on constructing affordable housing.
"We are doing something," he says.
But homeless advocates question whether
the city is doing enough. "When a homeless person is cited/fined
$155 for the 'crime' of sleeping/existing in public, and/or has
all their meager worldly possessions confiscated by city park staff
or police, it has devastating consequences on that person's ongoing
struggle to improve their life situation," homeless advocate John
Hubbird e-mailed the City Council.
Hubbird praised the city's "hard" work
on the homeless issue in the past but wrote, "the problem is, we're
bailing the Titanic with teaspoons."
Weinman says the city can't afford
to spend more money on the homeless. But the city recently tapped
a facility reserve fund to build a new $4 million police crime lab.
This year the city will squirrel away another $3 million toward
plans to build a new police headquarters.
Weinman says allowing people to sleep
in parks would create problems of human excrement and allowing a
Dignity Village could violate zoning rules and pose problems with
unsafe structures. So where should local homeless humans sleep and
shit? Weinman says, "We don't have a good answer."
From what she's heard from police,
Mona says the city's unwritten homeless policy appears to be that
"if you harass people enough, they'll go somewhere else."
But city studies show the local homeless
problem is home-grown. About 70 percent of the homeless have roots
in Lane County.
Mona says the city's biggest problem
is a lack of willpower. "When a new business comes to town, we shift
zoning around as fast as you can blink and give them tax credits,"
Mona says. "We want to see the city walk its talk in terms of human
rights."