Confessions... Thoughts Better Not Left Unsaid

I Make It To The Shelter

If I keep circling this block, they're going to report me for stalking. If I keep sitting in my car for hours on the street, feeding the meters, some cop is going to take an interest in me. No matter how much I try, I cannot seem to get out of this car by myself and go open that door. Finally, I accepted my friend George's offer to go to the shelter with me. Just to get me through that front door.

I met him on the street, and we walked around the corner to the two unmarked double doors. There was no sign on the doors—just some numbers on the wall—244—those reflective numbers with sticky backs that you get at hardware stores. Some women who were out for a smoke and a flock of kids playing tag were just a few yards away. I reached for the door and pulled but it was solidly closed. Locked.

I turned and saw all the women looking at me. Everyone stopped talking for a moment and then started again. They ignored me without taking their eyes off of me. No one looked unfriendly, but no one looked friendly, either. There was something here that they were protecting. I realized it was the Entrance. A moment later, one of the woman startled me from behind and with an official voice asked, "May I help you?"

Here was a Gatekeeper that I had to get past.

Was I supposed to state my business right here out in the open with everyone listening? Checking me out? Eyeing me from head to toe—taking my measure? The first principle of survival was in play—be observant—watch everyone and everything that is nearby. What were they seeing anyhow? A woman in her fifties, overweight, graying, clean, well-groomed. I'd be dammed if they'd see me any other way. Wearing a long skirt (because I always wear long skirts), a clean blouse, a cotton sweater, a decent but not flashy purse and flip-flops. I had on lipstick and held a thick file of papers in my arms. Did they know I was there because I'm homeless? How would they? How do they tell this? Did they think I was an official from the state? Don't count on it, Steph—the flip-flops give you away...

I need help, I said.

What kind of help? she asked.

I'm homeless.

Well, this place is for families... she said.

I have a son.

So, you need shelter today for you and your son...she said, matter-of-factly, as she took out her keys and unlocked the door.

I hesitated and looked over at George. He pointed his walking stick at the open door and I obeyed.

The door opened into a cement staircase of the institutional variety. It went up and down and the echo of our footsteps rang out. Just to the right of the door was a small waiting room with an office beyond that I could see behind a large window. The door to it was locked too. With the jangling of her keys echoing, she unlocked that door too and held it open for me.

Can we just talk first? I asked.

George settled himself in a corner of the waiting room, looking calm and managerial—both hands balanced on the top of his walking stick.

Can you tell me how this works? I asked, not sitting down. So she outlined the program.

You stay here during the day and then at 5:30 pm, we bus you over to a church where you sleep on mats on the floor for the night. We don't allow anyone to drive their own cars to the churches. You get a locker where you can lock your belongings at night and we open them when you get back to the church in the morning. There are showers... We take your money and hold it for you...

All I hear, prison, prison, prison. Can't drive yourself. Sleep on mats on the floor. Other people sleeping right next to you who you don't know. When was the last time I slept with anyone else but my kids or grandson in the room? I couldn't remember... Apparently, I said this thought out loud because she said,

Well, there are screens set up...

Sleeping on the floor... she might as well have said I will be sleeping on a bed of nails for my chronic pain syndrome. What are we supposed to do between 6 pm and when we fall asleep? When was the last time I went to sleep before midnight? I'm a night person... They lock up our things and we don't get the key—they do. They open the lockers when they want, and if I need something in them—too bad. They take my money... (What money? I laughed out loud) what is that all about? I have to ask them for my own money? Isn't it humiliating enough? As if I couldn't be trusted with my own money. Well, maybe that's true for a lot of these folks, but if I wasn't frugal and good at squeezing ten dollars out of a five dollar bill, I'd have been down here years ago... I have clothes older than my children... If I had any money, I would make sure they didn't know it. Does being homeless constitute being treated like a prisoner? Or a child? You do what we tell you...Holy Mother of God, I hate this... She kept talking,

Then, when there is a spot at the shelter, you go there. You get your own room and the curfew (yes, she used the word, 'curfew'), is better—you have to be in by nine pm... You can only stay there for 30 days in a 3 month period... They have housing counselors there...

And if they don't find me and my son housing within that time, what happens?

You come back here...

Does my son have to be here with me?

If you want to use this shelter. If it's just you, you have to go to the women's shelter. That's on the 2^nd floor of the Dorothy Day Center, but it's locked.

Everyone in Saint Paul knows where the Dorothy Day Center is because it's right across from the Xcel Center—the huge sports arena that sits at the entrance to our tiny downtown—which one could navigate within five minutes from end to end. Garrison Keillor on his show, The Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio talks about Saint Paul as a quaint little town—where you can stand on the corner of 6^th Street and 7^th Street at the very same time... Well, on that particular corner, all the homeless congregate, sprawled out on the grassy knolls with their backpacks or their shopping carts, bumming cigarettes and cat-calling any girl that walks by. My kids' friends go over there to bum smokes from the homeless... Yes, that's exactly where I aspire to hang out... I'm thinking as I hear the last part of her description,

...but they don't have any housing counselors there.

Where?

At the women's shelter...

Of course not, why would women need a housing counselor...?! I think to myself.

So, I say, there's only one way to get to the shelter and the housing counselors, and that's through you?

Pretty much, she says.

And the only way I can come here is if I bring my son with me, (I didn't say what my first choice of phrasing was—that the only way I could get help was if I subject my son, who is now safe, cared for, and relatively content where he is for the time being, to being a homeless prisoner here at the shelter... As if I am not a mother unless I'm actually accompanied by my child—(What? Am I going to fake being a mother? Isn't THAT on file, somewhere?) ...and protecting my child from this whole mess is exactly what disqualifies me from getting the help we need.

None of it makes any sense in my line of logic. Since I started looking for help with social service agencies, I've run into this conundrum so often that I've begun to wonder if my logic isn't faulty. It seems that theirs is the only logic exists. After all, they're the government. They have all kinds of paperwork, red tape and research to back up their reasoning.

I'm sure there are plenty of reasons for all these rules, but their effect, not only on the self-image of their clients—but on their very lives, doesn't seem to be a factor. It would be like living in a world where people say, Well, sure, we can help you!—but only if you've given birth to a dwarf with size twelve shoes. Size eleven and a half won't do... Or—Sure we can help you, if you are five foot seven, have green eyes, a limp on the left side—left side only!—and you talk with a lisp. Yessiree! There's ALL kinds of help out here for those unfortunates who've fallen on hard times...Or—the best one of all—and this one is REAL—Sure! We can help you! As long as we know that this will solve your problem and it won't be a REOCCURRING problem... Otherwise, if it IS a reoccurring problem, (as if anyone could promise that they could find work right now!) then, I'm sorry—we can't help...

Does THAT make any sense? Like the Urban League telling me that because I didn't have a job, they couldn't help me with my energy bill... (...if I had a job, why would need to ask you for help??)

Every month, I get at least five pieces of mail from the county with gobbley-gookey verbiage and tables of numbers that make no sense to me and are completely unnecessary. Every month I get at least one letter that threatens to stop my benefits because I didn't get my household report in on time, (which I always DO, by the way) and which my financial worker tells me to ignore...

I decided to do some math on those letters—let's say TWO of the letters are important. That means that THREE aren't. At 44 cents per letter, times 3=$1.32. Now there are 327,357 people in Minnesota on food stamps alone—so let's just use them for a theoretical number.

327,357 people

X $1.32
$432,111.24 monthly

$432,111.24 every month is being wasted on mailing unnecessary letters. What does this add up to per year?

$432,111.24

X 12 months
$5,185,334.88

Five million dollars a year is eaten up by sending out mail that no one understands, needs or that's actually wrong. .

How many houses, apartments, even these rare birds called 'housing counselors' could be bought, rented or hired for five million dollars?

And this is the government that is bailing us out of our recession? Or would somebody please correct my math?

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