In the Twilight of a Year

How many more plates do we need? I shout at volunteers in the front of Bread & Roses Cafe as we try to plate the right number of meals for our clients. Why I am cooking egg fritatta for 120 homeless people? is the same question I keep asking myself.

The previous Friday, my supervisor Kristen, calls out of a session with a client to talk to me. Our gourmet chef's wife has just had a baby she tells me. Would you mind just filling in for him on Monday? and as an afterthought, You cook, right? I nod my head. Although I've been eating lunch at Bread & Roses for almost a year, I've never seen what happens during a meal...

So, at 7:59:50am on Monday morning, I step through the back door of Bread & Roses, into The Inferno. Actually, it wasn't that bad. The director of the homeless programs got us off to a galloping start as I ordered three chefs in training about the kitchen and let another office comrade organize the volunteers. We rotated massive cookiesheets of buttered bread (flipping once) through the ovens, cracked over 200 eggs, sautéed mushrooms and tomatoes and onions and zucchini, chopped the fruit, and baked the sausages.

Apart from a few hiccups, my morning as replacement chef went smoothly. We had some overflow (extra clients who had to wait until seats were available) on the third meal, the toast was a little slow, and we had to make a trip to the grocery store for butter, but otherwise everything went well. No fights, little food throw away, no major problems in the kitchen. I think my heart was racing the whole time, but I absolutely loved it, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I'm Sorry, Your Life Is in a Recession

At least, that's what I feel like I'm telling my clients when they call me to check on their Section 8 voucher status. I used to tell people curious enough to ask that the recession wasn't affecting the work i do, but that's not true anymore.

I take my clients on a journey from homelessness to (hopefully) peacefully settled in their own apartment; but most of that journey consists of working with the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) to get my clients their Section 8 voucher. Why I am helping in this way? Because the wait time for Section 8 is about 10 years, so a special program was instituted to allow homeless persons to move more quickly. I help the client understand how the process works.

Except that right now, the system isn't working. Normally, clients receive their voucher in about 3 months if they get all their paperwork done in good time, but all of my clients have been waiting since at least February. Understandably, they're anxious to know if I've lost track of them or if everything is okay.

Everything is not okay! Until HACLA starts issuing more vouchers, there's nothing we can do at work which is infuriating and almost painful when my clients call. HACLA is saying they need to get their budget approved which is probably being influenced by the recession. It seems like this recession is effecting everything, although I know we live in (probably) the richest country in the world.

The Office

My typical day in the office starts with booting up my computer, checking voicemail, and checking the fax machine/making tea and breakfast at the break room. Then I meet with my clients (who either are living in a homeless shelter or recently housed), play tag—phone tag that is—, and write case notes. I've been fortunate to be able to be able to go visit people in their homes pretty regularly now. Our offices our really nice, don't get me wrong, but it's just so liberating to get out of them for a few hours each week!

At lunch time, one of the Jesuit volunteers (from South Bend ironically) and I walk to Bread & Roses Café. Bread and Roses is a glorified soup kitchen, serving gourmet food prepared fresh to 150 clients in a restaurant styled venue with a vase of roses at each table. Although I've gone flexitarian, the resident chef often prepares vegetarian dishes and meatless side dishes that I'm able to enjoy.

Nonprofits like my agency, the St Joseph Center, rely on "grants" to pay for most of their expenses, and these grants all have special requirements that need to be fulfilled...regularly. My grant is called the CDBG grant, and we have to meet certain yearly quotas for talking to clients, housing them, visiting them, and doing other various and sundry acts of service.

Only one client came in today. He was an older Iraqi immigrant who lectured me on the basics of saving money by shaving one's head bald, as he himself models, and by cooking for one's self. He told me that the air conditioning for his third floor apartment has never worked, so we called up the property manager to get to the bottom of this. The conversation went something like this:

Hi Jordan! This is Bryce Fisher from the St. Joseph Center. How are you?

Hi Bryce! I'm doing great. How are you?

I'm fine. I'm calling about John's air conditioning. He says it's been broken for several months. Do you have any idea when you'll be able to fix it?

[Sigh] No. I can't give you any idea. I know he reported it in March, but I have no idea. There are a lot of apartments with the same problem, and honestly our company has a lot of empty condos. I'm just happy to wake up and have a job. But I will speak to the repairs guy again.

Alright...well, thanks for your time, Jordan. Bye.

Bye, Bryce.

On the Streets Again

After setting two of my alarms and one of PJ's, I jumped out of bed this morning with a start, brewed a cup of tea, sneaked in some early morning reading, and drove in to work at 2:07am. Nothing was going to keep me from completing the last day of surveying the homeless in Venice.

Eddie (whose job is to know and serve the homeless daily), Sean, officer Jerry and I hit the streets for the final time this week. After a few minutes, we found Pat (not the real name) who was washing clothes in a drinking fountain and agreed to talk with us. Pat was happy and tangential, and explained that when the marriage became violent, Pat came out of the closet and has been on the streets for the last 7 years. I wish I could show you the picture of Pat and I beaming at the camera.

Eddie woke up Kylie (again the name has been changed) who was asleep in a car and managed to get Kylie to complete a survey. I genuinely felt bad for Kylie who was reluctant to be photographed when the first five flash photos were blurry.

Last story—earlier in the night we pulled into another parking lot with probably 15 homeless people camping out there. I hovered over one sleeping bag, calling out Wakey! Wakey! and other such enticing phrases for several minutes before an angry woman sat straight up. Didn't you hear my uncle say leave us alone?? she hissed. There was no else around, and no one had said anything.

Living on the streets for years at a time changes people's minds. I think this lady had already snapped and may even have become violent if I kept harassing her. Notice that I didn't say the streets make you crazy. I'm not convinced that these people are crazy. I think that they think differently than I do, but I'm not sure that makes them crazy. Is it wrong to have a mind that works differently? Sure this lady may hallucinate (and that's a problem), but is it wrong to not want to participate in society? On the other hand, everyone should have the help they need to move back into housing and get a job, etc. if they want to.

Well, I'll be back in the office tomorrow, but first Sean and I are off to watch Star Trek!

Sleeping In

I just never heard the alarm go off this morning, although when I checked it at 5:27am, I'm sure it did. So much for interviewing the homeless this morning.

Today was also election day for California. No, we're not gathering at polling places around the state in order to elect representatives to staff the government—today we vote on budget amendments. After conferring with a middle aged, political activist couple from church (Cathy & Alex) on Sunday afternoon, I voted no. No more budgeting powers for the gubernator without oversight, no extending temporary taxes another 3 years, no cantankering with education spending, no depletion of mental health services, and no more pay increases for elected officials during a budget deficit.

Since I've switched my voter's registration to California, my polling place is about 50 yards down the street from my front door. It's located in the neighborhood VFW post. My roomies tell me they hear concerts going on inside the hall weekly.

We've also experienced two tremors (one technically an aftershock) in the past two days. The first tremor registered in at 4.7 and fooled me into thinking Jay was doing gymnastics poorly. The second struck today about 3:45pm while I was doing penance for sleeping through the surveys by working in the office. It was what the Californians call a roller since it felt like the floor was rolling back and forth, rather than shaking more up and down.

Tonight/tomorrow morning is the final night for the Venice Vulnerability Indexing, so I'm headed to bed in the next hour (it's 7:00pm now, my time) so I can wake feeling refreshed for the morning festivities. Well, almost refreshed....

Venice Vulnerability Index

1:03 AM. "Why is my alarm buzzing?" I ask myself before sitting up in bed to rub my eyes. Twenty minutes later, I realize for the first time what the streets of Inglewood look like without any traffic, although the 10 mile commute to work still takes 25 minutes.

This morning by 2:00am the last of the 40 odd volunteers walk in to St Joseph Center for a brief training before we crawl the streets of Venice, California, looking for vulnerable homeless women and men to survey. We go in teams of 3 (some of us with police officers), and make notes of everyone we see. Thus our surveys are also counts of the total homeless population in the neighborhood.

But why are we out here so early, disturbing the poor vagabonds? The theory is that homeless tend to sleep in the same places, night after, although they move around during the day. Thus, in our 3 night survey, we should be able to get an accurate picture of the homeless that are part of the community. In addition to mapping the location of everyone sleeping on the streets, we're taking pictures of everyone we encounter who is willing to be photographed. In the surveys we ask a lot of health related questions, and we track demographic data too. These written and photographic information will make it easier to find these persons later.

The goal is to house the most vulnerable people. After all the data is collected, we'll analyze it to determine who we believe to be the most vulnerable and concentrate the efforts of the police, social service agencies, the government, and the public towards those identified as most at risk. This seemed to work well in Santa Monica (adjacent to Venice) and in some neighborhoods of New York City. We'll rely heavily on the medical information we gather to assess who is most at risk.

And tomorrow, I'll bring you back some stories from the street. But now, it's time to crash.