Shelter Motto: 'Conform Or Get Out!'

Some people are more difficult than others. Some are better organized. On the topics of manners, appropriate language, and personal hygiene, no two are alike.
No two of us have the same life experiences – losses, failures, frustrations, injustices – that uniquely wound us. Charlie Chan once said: “School of experience good, but sometime fees high.”
Add to these experiences the wildcards of health, addiction, disability, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and (add your own here), you begin to see how unique each one of us is in the way we hurt and in our way of being.
Each homeless person has become so for reasons that are unique to them. Each requires a unique restoration.
It seems understandable that the very things that can contribute to someone’s homelessness would also create in them a hardship when it comes to succeeding in social situations, such as a homeless shelter.
Unfortunately, the Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter demands that everyone who comes into the shelter must instantly become organized, mannerful, pleasant, and easy to work with.
“Conform or Get Out!” is a suitable motto.
When employed there, I was told by the shelter dictator that I was “getting too close” to the residents.
My reply: “You’re not close enough!”
Boy, I learned my lesson. Never tell a megalomaniac they could use some improvement.

Even If You Succeed You Are Kicked Out

He came to the Sheridan Community Shelter on the fly.
Some of the homeless do this – they move around, scouting for a good place to stop for the season, a year, or the rest of their lives.
This particular guy was looking for a place to start settling his life down.
He came in at about noon, and by 3:30 p.m. had been to town and back with four job offers. The problem in Sheridan is: Lots of jobs, no place to live. Waiting lists for apartments are long, and it can take three to five months to emerge at the top of any of these.
His priorities were to get a job, acquire his own transportation, and maybe find a room to live in for a while until the apartment market simmered down.
He was of the gregarious type – very talkative, animated, would burst into song for no apparent reason, and smart.
Only a week went by before he landed an irresistible deal on a rare Harley-Davidson (and I couldn’t begin to tell you the bike details). He was extremely pleased with what he considered a “steal,” and managed the payments within his budget.
When the shelter director heard about this, all hell broke loose.
He was hauled into her office and accused of putting on airs of superiority around other shelter residents (who didn’t care for his singing, as it turns out). And, he was really in trouble for purchasing the Harley.
“This is not something the shelter can support,” she said.
“Why?” he said. “Look, I got a job the same day I got here, and I need some transportation to work, and I am waiting for housing. I did all this while checking in with Tim.”
Apparently, he was supposed to have bought some kind of clunker that can barely run, and he certainly needed to curtail his naturally chipper outlook.
I knew right then he was doomed.
She didn’t kick him out that day. She waited a few days.
I guess the shelter doesn’t “support” success, and a lucky break on a good bike.

The Shelter That Trashes Donations By The Truckload

‘Sheridan Community Shelter Dumps Truckloads of Donations in Landfill.’
As unlikely a headline as this might seem, this was the case at the Volunteers of America Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter last August.
I think everyone feels good that we have a homeless shelter in this community in northeast Wyoming. Naturally, such a place would tug at the heart of just about anyone. Many local people, businesses, groups and organizations donate items to the shelter.
People bring food, used clothes, sometimes new clothes, toys, books, bicycles, furniture, dishes, TVs and many other items. This is no surprise, coming from a responsive town with a strong sense of kinship and brotherhood.
What is a surprise, is that the shelter administration decided last August to load four dump-trucks full of donations in the Sheridan landfill. They threw away everything but cash.
The shelter uses a next-door building, an old non-functioning two-lane bowling alley on the Veterans Administration grounds, for storage. As can happen, this area became untidy.
Rather than organize; rather than the Volunteers of America seeking appropriate storage for the many donations given by good-hearted people; it was decided to chuck everything.
The shelter needs to apologize for literally trashing the goodwill of the people who support the needy among them.

St. Benedict Joseph Labre -- Saint for the Homeless

Moved and challenged by the words of Jesus in the Gospel - 'the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head' - Benedict Joseph committed himself to perpetual pilgrimage, wandering from church to church to worship Jesus. He never begged, but depended upon strangers who were moved to help him. Whenever he had more than he needed, he shared this with his fellow homeless. His clothes were tattered and he was often asked to leave churches due to his odor. These were forgotten or forgiven in light of his holy life. He died in a hostel in Rome in 1783, at age 37. Was canonized a saint in the Catholic Church on Dec. 8, 1883. His memorial day in the church is April 16.

Prayer to Saint Benedict Joseph Labre
Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, you gave up honor, money and home for love of Jesus. Help us to set our hearts on Jesus and not on the things of this world. You lived in obscurity among the poor in the streets. Enable us to see Jesus in our poor brothers and sisters and not judge by appearances. Make us realize that in helping them we are helping Jesus. Show us how to befriend them and not pass them by. Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, you had a great love for prayer. Obtain for us the grace of persevering prayer, especially adoration of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, poor in the eyes of men but rich in the eyes of God, pray for us. Amen.

The Working Homeless

It is probable that many people in and around Sheridan are under the impression that homelessness is a big-city problem.
Not so.
I can count one person, an old veteran, in the past year who I have seen pushing a grocery cart on Sheridan’s streets. We have no one sleeping in our post office, and all other public nooks and crannies are devoid of sleeping or passed-out people.
We have had two people in the last year camped out at an exit off Interstate 90. Both incidents drew a lot of attention.
Because we have a homeless shelter, such as it is, in Sheridan, it could also be presumed that all the homeless in Sheridan are taken care of.
Not so.
The homeless in Sheridan are unseen, and many have jobs.
They will be in front of you in line at Wal-mart, and you won’t know they are homeless. They work behind a desk in a nice facility, but they are homeless. They are on your construction crew, but they can’t find a place to live. They are janitors, mill workers, the people who take your order at a fast-food restaurant, cooks in nicer sit-down places, CNAs, small-scale contractors, painters, your cashier at Kmart – homeless. Lost between the cracks.
Most are not without shelter. They are living on the couch at their brother’s place, or crashing at a friend’s place subjected to a lifestyle involving drugs or other weirdnesses. They may be one of eight people living in a two-bedroom trailer house. They may be staying with a different person each night.
God help them, some of them are staying at the Sheridan Community Shelter. They will either endure the director’s intrusive, authoritarian ways; leave because of same; or get kicked out for reasons undetectable with a good microscope. Not a good option, in any case.
They are the working homeless.
They are here.

The shelter that kicks 'em out for saying "these people"

He had been staying at the Sheridan Community Shelter for a couple of weeks.
He was a veteran, just shy of middle age.
He had worked on ranches most of his life, and almost immediately got a job on a ranch in the county.
He was such a quiet person, and was away at work so much, that he was not noticed that much by the other shelter residents. He kept to himself, followed the rules, and was working toward self-sufficiency.
Veterans at the Sheridan Community Shelter are allowed to stay up to two years. His time was foreshortened.
Here is why:
In casual conversation with the shelter director, he said, as reported by the director, “I know what these people are like. I am not like them.”
The director replied, “Pack your bags.”
No warning. No comment that his words could possibly be considered offensive in any way. Just, “Pack your bags.”

And she wonders to this day why residents seize up when she asks to see them in her office!

Stunned and stung by this sudden reversal thrown at him, the resident said as he left, "I sure don't have any bad feelings about this place. I would like to make a donation as soon as I can." Nice guy.
Me? I stood there working on my ulcer.

The Shelter That Didn't Care

He came to the Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter absolutely desperate. He is an alcoholic and had been self-anaesthetizing since a family tragedy near Sheridan five years ago. The alcohol doesn’t help. He knows it. He still hurts.
He told me he was afraid that if the pain goes away, he will forget his teenage daughter, whom he lost when she was a passenger in a car accident.
He fights every moment to stay away from alcohol. When he came to the Sheridan shelter, he had been on a three-day drinking binge. He was shaking so bad it was hard to understand his part of a conversation. He needed to go to detox.
Anyone who knows anything about Detox 101 knows that the body’s attempt to filter and purge can, itself, be a fatal exertion.
He was advised to accept an ambulance ride to the hospital.
He resisted, saying he had no money, no insurance, and believed “they don’t like me over there.”
After persistence, he agreed to go. I walked him to the ambulance and promised to be with him at the hospital. The Memorial Hospital of Sheridan County graciously accepted him at their ER, and admitted him that same day. He was assigned a very caring doctor, and the staff treated him cheerily and efficiently.
This all happened on the day before Thanksgiving. I sat with him in the ER, and I visited him in his hospital room. He was very freaked during the first two days. I never saw someone so uncomfortable in their own skin.
A few days later he was finally discharged and came to the shelter. I consulted with him, and found that he had no other viable option for a living situation. It takes four to six months to find a place to rent here and two-bedroom lean-to’s are starting at $600 per month.
He immediately asked about AA meetings, and was set up with someone to pick him up (the shelter skirts the extreme north edge of town, so it is a two-mile walk to the nearest pack of cigarettes, and much farther to meetings and services offered by the Sheridan community).
One night he and another resident stayed out past shelter curfew. The other guy told him they had permission. They did not. He decided to stay somewhere else that night.
After an absence of some days, he returned to the shelter. The director was confrontational with him (as she is with all), but he came back in with us.
You might wonder where he stayed those nights away. He has friends, “but they all use,” he said. He stayed with them, with drugs and alcohol all around him. He knew no good could come of this for him. These places, these people, were not viable options.
After his return, he had an opportunity to perhaps kindle a relationship with his real father, whom he had never met. He went out that night to seek this man, and ended up out past curfew.
As you can see, he was erratic.
The director said he was no longer welcome back to the shelter. Rules are rules. He was seen by the shelter dictator (edit) director as an abuser of the shelter. He was never drinking, never posed a threat, got along with everyone. He was just difficult enough that he got the boot.
The Sheridan Community Shelter has a pages-thick list in tiny print of individuals who are no longer welcome back at the shelter.
He called a day later and said he needed to come back to the shelter. I had to tell him that the shelter was no longer an option. I felt my soul twist nearly in half. We had six male beds available.
“Please, Tim, please! Can I come up, please?”
Not an option. Sorry.
I alerted staff that he was not to allowed in the building, as I was afraid he could get into trouble and the director would somehow get him sent to Siberia or something.
“I don’t understand how they call this a homeless shelter when I am homeless and I need to be there.”
I was silent, but miserable. I didn’t understand it, either.

Next thing I knew, he had been arrested. DWUI (Wyoming has driving while under the influence, and adds the extra letter).
Last night I visited him in jail. He had no one on his visitor’s list. I wrote him first, and asked him to put me on his list, if he wanted to. I couldn’t see him unless on the list.
Last night we talked by phone through a thick wall of glass separating us.
He was concerned about me getting fired from the shelter.
He’s the one in jail, I thought. Yet, his first concern was me.
We had 15 minutes to talk. He told me he had of few drinks, got in his car and turned himself in at the Sheriff’s Office. This he did in desperation because he had no place to live, and had not eaten, he said, in five days.
He is going to get treatment for his alcoholism. I was very pleased about that. He awaits $40 for a physician’s physical and then he has bed space waiting.
I asked him what he was going to do when he got out of treatment. He doesn’t know. I told him I would help him.
“I won’t go to the shelter, though,” he said.
The Sheridan Community Shelter is no longer welcome in his life.
I don’t blame him. Not one little bit.

Sanctity of life flows through all the moments of every person.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, pro-lifers have scheduled a silent memorial to the children lost since Roe Vs Wade (35 years ago). I will be there, not as a protest, but as a testament to life.
Those of us who recognize the sanctity of life from the cradle to the grave must recognize that poor persons, weak persons and homeless persons share fully this sanctity.
Our acknowledgement of the worth and nobility inherent in each person brings with it a responsibility for a continuous stream of care that flows through all the moments of every person.
We do not, then, turn away because a person is difficult, angry, fails to meet our expectations, relapses into addiction, or falls back into a cycle of failure. We are expected to be patient, relentless and care-free in our caring. We cannot let our disappointments stop us from giving, or kink the hose of our graciousness. Freely we give. Fully we love.

Dignity is not earned, it is inherent

On this observed birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., which in Wyoming we call “Equality Day,” it is good to consider the innate dignity of every person, and the respect that each is due merely because they exist.
This is not an easy concept to handle, even though it is a basic human capacity. Some people behave or dress or don’t bathe often enough, and this makes it more difficult for us to see the dignity and to offer the respect due. We don’t all wear our dignity on our sleeves all the time.
True good will – the good that we do for another person to improve their life – starts when this sometimes-hidden dignity is nonetheless recognized. Whatever good will is expressed is energized by our getting in touch with the respect due.
This is especially apparent in the way we treat the poor and the weak. This includes the homeless, the unwed mother, the pregnant teen, the addict, and the unborn child. Some of these are culpable for their own situations, but they are no less due respect, and they have no less dignity as a person than any other person.
Let our eyes be opened to recognize the inherent worth and nobility of all others, especially the person next to us.

Psalm for those with a heart for the homeless

Psalm 41

"Happy the man who considers the poor and the weak.
The Lord will save him in the day of evil,
will guard him, give him life, make him happy in the land
and will not give him up to the will of his foes.
The Lord will help him on his bed of pain,
he will bring him back from sickness to health."

Another nudge in the ribs for shelter oversight

In my weekly church page column in The Sheridan Press, today, I continued my nudging of the ribs of VOA's shelter featuring poor treatment of its residents. We need to remember that homelessness is the enemy, even though boards and administrators don't help matters by looking the other way.
Here is that part of the column, in the context of Christian unity:

"Even my frothy-mouthed confrontation with Volunteers of America’s poor treatment of the poor at the shelter is not, in the end, for the purpose of one destroying the other, but in ensuring that the dignity of each and of any is held as high as possible as they are cared for.
"Obviously, we have different perspectives. I think they are wrong and mean-spirited, and they think I am a dork who should have called the whistle-blower number. But still, there are people on that other team whom I admire and with whom I am tied by the unseverable bond of faith.
"So, we even poke one another in the eye as brethren. Some day there might even be a celebration of our unity, after I am done being offended and they quit treating the homeless at the shelter like kindergartners. Probably not today, though."

My letter to the board that overlooks the shelter

I realize that it is possible to consider me an angry former employee of Volunteers of America. Please consider that I write to you without malice, but with a deep personal concern for the unsuitable treatment of individuals seeking help through the Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter.
I cannot in good conscience not write you about this.

Briefly, here are my concerns:

Thirty-five percent of the people who were admitted to the shelter in 2007 were later kicked out of the shelter by staff or the director. A slim minority of these were understandably kicked out because they had broken “no-tolerance” rules, such as possession of alcohol, violent/threatening language, actual violence or thievery.
In 2007, the vast majority of the incidents that led to the dismissal of residents were indefensible on the part of the shelter’s own printed guidelines, on the part of the VOA Mission Statement, and on the part of anyone upholding the dignity and responsibility of a person. Obviously, this has an abusive, disempowering effect on residents.
Neither the staff nor the director is asked to answer to anyone with regard to the dismissal of a homeless resident. Even the number of those kicked out is not reported. Persons in need of help are released to the wind, some of whom couldn’t tell you why they got kicked out.
A resident veteran named Craig was kicked out for saying, “I know what these people are like. I am not like them.”
A resident was kicked out for failing to show up at a Saturday spot job, even though he had volunteered at a church on Friday to help pay for the bus ticket they provided, and worked a spot job Sunday. Monday morning he was kicked out. The guidelines say nothing about spot jobs.

Residents are bullied by staff and the director.
A veteran named Bill with a painful foot ailment was ordered by the director this summer to “get out of the shelter and take a walk downtown.” He complied, because he did not wish to be kicked out.
A veteran named Mike was told by staff, out of the blue, “You have two days to get a job, or you are out of here.” This resident had employment prospects in a technical field well on the way, and was eventually hired in his field and lives in Sheridan. I was put in the position of defending Mike against this bullying.
A resident named Charles was told he was mentally ill based on his religious beliefs, and was ordered by the director to see Mental Health or get kicked out.
A resident (name escapes me) was severely questioned because he bought a motorcycle while staying at the shelter. The resident had found a job the same day he registered at the shelter, and was awaiting housing. He was later kicked out by the director for a reason that the director could not articulate. “This isn’t going to work out,” is all they are told.
A staff member said in a meeting with myself and the director that he was going to do everything he could to kick a resident out. “I am going to get him today,” he said. The director made no comment about this irregular and unacceptable attitude from shelter staff.
In groups (meals or meetings, even devotional times) residents have been scolded like children.
Any resident at the homeless shelter knows that he or she can stay only as long as they are “allowed” to, putting them in a disempowering position when bullied. This goes on so routinely that the resident that is called into the director’s office is usually afraid that he or she is being kicked out. I can think of 10 (and there must be more) incidents when a resident was asked to see the director, and the first words out of their mouth were, “Are you going to kick me out?” Dozens more have asked, “Am I in trouble?” The director has said she doesn’t understand why the residents feel this way.
I have witnessed he worst kind of bullying – the smiling, “I am your best advocate,” sort that manipulates and intimidates. Residents were constantly harassed by the spoken or unspoken threat of being kicked out.

Residents are asked to spy on one another when not at the shelter. The director has called residents into her office to question them about the whereabouts and actions of other shelter residents while downtown in Sheridan. Residents have not wanted to do this, but were afraid or obligated to comply. Many referred to her as a “control freak” (not to her face).

I will summarize my other concerns: Staff training (all staff do intakes, no training was provided in 2007), residents are limited to access to their PRN (as needed) medications and sometimes forced to wait an hour for a pain relievers (director and staff decide when they can have them), residents are disallowed from taking spot jobs, the director’s immediate supervisor was only on site three times in 2007, the grievance procedure stops at the director’s desk, meals were refused to residents who had failed to sign up, an employee living at the shelter was allowed to stay in the shelter while inebriated off-duty (anyone else would have been kicked out), and one of our staff was working 16-our days (may still be doing so) – a shift at Supervision and a shift at the Shelter, back-to-back.

I was witness to all of the above and could not in good conscience leave these matters unsaid. These are not things that anyone would see on a usual tour of the shelter, or a usual report.

The poor, the unfortunate and the vulnerable are subject to harsh and unfair treatment at the shelter – treatment not in keeping with the VOA mission statement, not on par with my perception of the excellence of the youth home, foster parenting and WYSTAR programs, and not in keeping with what any person in good conscience would deem appropriate. I am personally embarrassed that the shelter has the word “Sheridan” in it, and you should be, too, that it says “Volunteers of America.”

I suggest all residents be given an exit or commenting form to be sealed and mailed to a board member.
I suggest that the shelter report to the board on the number and reasons for all dismissals of residents.
I suggest that the director keep detailed notes and on the reason for each dismissal.
I suggest that the quality of care at the shelter be supervised by a board sub-committee.
I suggest that the shelter staff keep track of, but not limit access to residents’ medications. This is a sticky situation, and a workable solution has yet to be found.

In sum, I submit that the dignity and restorability of each individual has not been given consideration at the shelter. This deeply troubles me. Administrating a homeless shelter and caring for the homeless are not the same things. I am afraid Volunteers of America has only succeeded at the former.

Poor Treated Poorly at Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter

We have a problem at the Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter in northeast Wyoming.
I worked there for a year as the second-in-command, and the director had me team up with her during most of her conversations with shelter residents throughout the year of 2007.
I watched her condescend to our residents, create almost universal fear of being kicked out among them, and encroach on their personal lives when they were away from the shelter, all in the name of "helping them stay on their program."
People were kicked out for no defensible (and sometimes no defineable) reason.
I was put in the position of defending our homeless residents against the director and one of the staff (who saw a drug addict in every new resident).
I found the whole ordeal very unpleasant, undignified and offensive.
I was told I was "too close" to our homeless guests, and when I had a casual conversation with one of them, the director told me I was "counseling," and that I should "leave that up to mental health."
I was fired a couple of days before Christmas.
I raised these concerns to the board of Volunteers of America, which replied in The Sheridan Press through its vice-president, that there was "nothing to" my concerns.
The homeless in and around our community deserve much better than this.