Bob Weston's Reflections on the Homeless Shelter
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:02:40 - 0500
I have been volunteering to stay overnight at the Dorothy Day homeless shelter for nearly 25 years. Occasionally people ask why I do it. My short answer that the need is great and volunteering is an act that communicates my belief in the worth and dignity of every person to men and woman who often do not feel very valued or dignified in the broader world.
A little bit longer answer is that helping people survive one more night gives each an opportunity to change, to decide if they want to move toward a different life. For some, substance abuse, particularly alcohol, has dominated their lives. Some young men have been thrown out of their homes because of their sexual orientation. Some women have been the victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence.
Two surprising things have jumped out at me over the course of many years at the shelter. One is the high percentage of the homeless who work full time jobs. What they earn is just not enough to survive on. The second surprise is that sometimes someone I know has become homeless. Two were former students of Joel Barlow High School in Redding where I used to work, another a cashier I always enjoyed chatting with at the now Walmart replaced Bradlees discount department store and recently even a teenaged, friendly waitress from a local diner.
As Linda noted in a sermon last month, go to work helping where the need is great and the proximity is near.
Once in a while I get to have a lengthy chat with one of the four week long coordinators. These are the people who know each of the homeless by name and who screen guests to be sure they are sober and haven’t exceeded the 30 days maximum stay per year. One actually worked with Dorothy Day herself down in the Bowery soup kitchens. Another fellow was shocked that I didn’t believe in a heaven or in life after death. He half jokingly proclaimed that he was racking up all the brownie points he could at the shelter in the hope that Saint Peter would have something nice to say about him when he arrived at the Pearly Gates. He got quite a laugh when I told him that, like me, most Unitarian-Universalists are good-for-nothing! But it really did amaze him that I tried to do good in the here and now without regard for an afterlife.
Like serving food at the soup kitchen, volunteering to stay overnight at the shelter involves simple work at its core: hand out towels and toiletries, wash and dry dirty clothes and finally in the morning after all are gone, sweep floors and sanitize bathrooms. Done with caring and respect, these simple actions are good things that help in their small way to repair the world and damaged lives. They are useful and close to home.
This June I retire to North Carolina where I have already served at the Chapel Hill soup kitchen as a member of the Community Church UU group. Their shelter has a professional overnight staff. After I move there, I know I’ll miss overnights at Danbury’s Dorothy Day shelter. Good work is hard to find (not!).
Bob Weston 2/20/07