University Daily Kansan/Friday, December 2, 1988
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Help for the homeless Salvation Army shelter aids growing local homeless population
By Douglas Fishback Special to the Kansan
It's almost 9 p.m. at the Salvation Army shelter, and the spaghetti, bread and salad have begun to take the edge off everyone's hunger. A thin, goathead man in his mid 20% offers his leftover cupcake to the man sitting next to him.
"Here, have a cupcake," he says, nudging it across the table. "I can't stand to let food go to waste."
Conversation picks up as dinner, new this year at the shelter, comes to a close. Jim, a man in his 30s with long, thinning black hair, picks at what remains of his cupcake as he talks with another diner, a white-haired man in a mustard-colored sweater. The man tries to convince him to stay the night at the shelter.
to stay in Jimmy's house that for now he is happy living in his 1967 Callahue hearse, which is parked in a friend's east Lawrence back yard. He's got his "mummy bag," he says, and an electric cord running from the house. He doesn't want to sleep at the shelter now, but later this winter, "if it gets snowy and nasty, I must" he says.
winter. "It it gets snowy and foggy, we seek refuge from Jim and other Lawrence homeless seeking refuge from the coming cold would find more that's new at the shelter than the dinner program. They would find more people staying there — including more families — and a new set of rules."
Open doors
The shelter, at 946 New Hampshire St., opened its doors for its third winter Nov. 1. In its first four weeks of operation it housed nearly 250 people.
operation She directed Susan Beers said last year's nightly average was about 15 people. She said she expected this year's average to be considerably higher because of harder economic times.
"I expect when it gets cold we're talking maybe 20 to 25 people," Beers said.
The shelter filled a total of about 2.700 beds last year, said Captain John Churchill, local Salvation Army director.
mute the too far the big attraction has been the new dinner program.
program.
Christopherson, a shelter co-director, cooks for the shelter, which serves dinner Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights at 8:30. In its first four weeks it fed about 580 people.
She said the shelter set up its program to fill in the gaps in the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen schedule. LINK operates out of the First Christian Church at 10th and Kentucky streets and serves Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, Christopherson said. LINK also serves dinner the last Friday of every month.
also see the men who are definitely needed," she said. "We're reaching more people."
reaching more people.
Once the coffee has been consumed or has gone cold, people needing a place to stay are welcome to set up a cot for the night in the Army's gymnasium.
The children
The children.
Five people stayed in the shelter its first Friday, and they slept in alone. But the following Monday night, two tired-looking parents quietly folded their two small children into pink blankets in a far corner of the gym.
Christopherpson said the number of homeless families in Lawrence was increasing.
"The first year, I don't think we even had one family," she said, nodding toward the parents sleeping with their children in the corner.
children in it. However, the shelter has already received several injuries from families, she said.
Beers said that if the shelter were able to provide separate housing for women and families, many more would take advantage of the lodgings.
Nearly half of the patrons of the shelter this winter will be families, Churchill said. A quarter of those housed will be children. Churchill said his long-term goals for the shelter would include moving it out of the gym and into a larger structure, one that would have separate rooms for families and women.
As Churchill spoke, a uniformed worker leaned across his office doorway and told him there was a woman with two children on the phone. The woman needed a place to stay but did not want to bring her children to the shelter.
"Tell her it's either Headquarters or here," Churchill told the worker, a hint of resignation in his voice. Headquarters
Headquarters
Headquarters, 1419 Massachusetts St., offers shelter and short-term counseling for people who have had domestic problems or have undergone similar crisis situations. Their space is limited, and they refer the homeless to the Salvation Army's shelter.
Churchill said such family cases were common. As for a new facility, he said, "Down the road I think we'll find it."
He called it a matter of finding a donor — soon.
It'll then, the asym will have to do.
Police escort
At about 1 a.m. someone bangs on the double glass doors of the shelter. Maryellen Pambookian, a Newton, Mass., doctoral student and volunteer for the night, steps into the dim glow of the exit sign that hangs above the doors. She leans forward and, in a low voice, tells the man knocking to get a police escort.
murder.
"Aw, come on," he protests. "I just went down there,
and they said they don't do that anymore."
She tells the man he can't come in without an escort. The man then says the police just drove by. Again she tells him to walk one block south to the police station and get an escort. That's the rule.
get an escort from the police station of minutes later, an officer brings him to the door and Pamankibo lets him in. The officer would have escorted him to the lobby of the police station had he been drinking.
The shelter is operating on a new, stricter set of rules this year, director Susan Beers said.
The rules are simple:
■ no drinking, before or after entering the shelter
no drugs, including cigarettes
no foul language or disruptive behavior
no noi lounge language or skirt.
no no admittance after 10 p.m. without a police escort.
no no loitering around the shelter or in the neighborhood.
volunteers and staff have the final word.
Bears et al. Churchill said the new rules were part of an effort to streamline and bring increased professionalism to the program. They said they hoped the restructuring would qualify the shelter for additional money from federal grants and foundations — money that would help finance the shelter's modest $26,000 budget.
finance the shelter's modest needs.
But the constraint of shelter rules can be too much for some people, said one man in his 30s who wanted to be identified only as a homeless person.
identified only as a homeless person. "Some homeless people aren't used to having set rules," he said, adjusting the towel wrapped around his whiskered neck.
"You gota be lenient with some people. But me, I like a little warmth at night," he said with a grin.
He said he eventually wanted to leave Lawrence, where he has lived for 11 years. He said many of the homeless people who stayed at the shelter had roots in Lawrence.
"Most are Lawrence residents," he said. "It was that wav last year, too — residents of Lawrence."
Director Susan Beers estimates that Lawrence has a chronically homeless population of 30 to 40, with others "episodically homeless."
'episodically niche' Co-director of hisophistopher says many of these college-town residents simply cannot bear the burden of college-town rent with the meager wages they earn. Churchill says others are simply unemployable, struggling to survive by doing spot jobs such as sidewalk shoveling or yard clean up.
Similar problems
The causes of homelessness in Lawrence are largely the same as in any other city, he said.
the same as in any other city, he said. Volunteer Pambookian said that the problem of homelessness got a lot of attention in her home state of Massachusetts but that "it's a problem here, too."
She said she planned to volunteer at the shelter two or three times a month.
"You forget there's a world out there with a lot of social problems," she said. Volunteering "keeps you in touch with the real world."
Volunteers
The shelter is desperate for volunteers, especially during December, Beers said. Ideally, the shelter would be furnished by one staff member and three volunteers each night, she said, but unless more people call to volunteer, staff members will be putting in some long and lonely hours.
"Hopefully, we'll need them," Beers said. "Lawrence has been good, in all my years of social service, about rallying around a program."
Volunteers go through short orientation sessions, which will be scheduled throughout the season as needed.
Those interested in volunteering can call the shelter at 843-4188.
The Salvation Army's shelter for the homeless will be open every night through March. Churchill said he expected shelter beds to be filled about 3,000 times this season.
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