Shelter's status quo hurts good people

He had become a little disconnected from life.
He came to the shelter, alone, with a vague idea that he was going to head east and make amends with his parents and siblings.
He was just on the other side of middle age.
Once at the Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter, as sometimes happens, he decided to try to drive a stake in the dirt and call Sheridan his home.
This meant finding a job.
He had a technical background in his work history, and wanted to pursue jobs specific to his knowledge and abilities. Jobs, at this point, were hanging on trees in Sheridan. Employers were falling on the feet of anyone who would come in and apply for work.
The process of applying and acquiring a technical job would take a little longer than running downtown and nabbing employment in the food service, construction or sales industries. We both knew this.
He started the application process and got a lengthy spot job pulling weeds in a field for a nice lady who paid $100 per day, which, good Lord, was more than I was making at the shelter.
Meantime, a staff member bet me that this guy was a “shelter hopper,” and that he would not amount to anything. I begged to differ.
The shelter director decided, on a whim, that the shelter would no longer “support” spot jobs. She was bound and determined to push this man to get a “real” job.
I defended his choices, believing that in time he would get a good job in his technical field, once the application and waiting process had run its course.
The staff member one day announced to the man that he had “three days to find a job, or you are outta here.”
They especially like saying “outta here” at this shelter.
The man came immediately to my office, and said, “Tim, what am I going to do.”
“You are going to get a great job in your field,” I said. “I am going to tell so-and-so to stop mindlessly threatening people.”
Honestly, I don’t think I even slowed him down.
The man got a great job in his field and a place to live. Sheridan is his home.
The status quo at the shelter would have bumped him down the road.
There is a vast difference between making a person someone else’s problem, and working on solutions for that person. The shelter director and some of her staff must have missed school that day.