Shelter Usually Eats Dignity For Lunch

She couldn’t believe she was in a homeless shelter.
At 30, she had a college degree in business, a daughter in elementary school, and an ex-husband.
Circumstances sometimes twist, as they had with her.
She came to the shelter with nervous, defeated tears.
For many people who are unaccustomed to requiring the use of a homeless shelter, the entrance and the first few days are emotionally devastating. Adults feel like they are admitting failure, that there is little or no hope, that the simplest choice or activity is overwhelming.
She came to my office fraught with these difficulties. Her daughter was in her ex-husband’s care.
Her own homelessness was too much to bear at the time, so I suggested she relax for a day or two, and get herself used to the people and the schedule of the shelter.
From the first day, she made it clear that she “hated the shelter.” I understood what she meant – this was the worst that things had ever gotten.
She put up with a lot while she was at the shelter – her own feelings, arguments with other women in the facility (lots of gossip and snippiness in the women’s area; men’s area too for that matter), the occasional bullying of the director, job-seeking (and job-finding!) and a trip to jail because she missed a court hearing because the notice was sent by mail to an old address.
She worked days at her new job. She still didn’t have a place to live.
The director asked me how come I hadn’t met with the woman in a while. “She is at work during the day,” I explained.
“Well, she needs to work on her program.”
“She is working on her program, most of which is getting and sustaining a job,” I said. On I talked to the wall that was herself.
When the director heard this woman say she “hated it here,” she was ready to kick her out at once.
I tried to explain what the woman meant, but it was more wall-talking for me.
The director left it to me to kick the woman out.
Somehow, I never got around to it, and within a few days, she found a place to live for a while. A place that wasn’t the greatest, but, it also wasn’t the shelter.
The woman somehow escaped with her dignity in tact. That is a rarity at the “Her Clutches Homeless Shelter” in Sheridan.