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.