Street Stories

2012-02-08T13:54:00.001-08:00

I spent 10 days in the Bay Area with my brother. One day we took the ferry from Marin County to downtown San Francisco. There were all kinds of homeless people hanging out with their stuff along the touristy area near the ferry dock. But there was only one guy panhandling. Everyone else was talking, soaking up sunlight. Maybe it was just me (homeless expert I guess) but it had a very different vibe. Maybe the mild January weather, but it was comfortable. No one was hustling the tourists.

Downtown San Rafael was somewhat the same. Lots of people hanging around various half-way houses, Salvation Army cafeteria, food bank, and for some reason, the downtown Starbucks had quite a collection of homeless folks. But I don't remember anyone panhandling. Maybe there's a law, or maybe there's just not much success at it. It was just different.

Every community in the United States is seeing homeless people now, except the most remote or exclusive (another form of remoteness I guess). Thirty years ago you wouldn't see homeless people in Marin County. Just saying.

Christmas?

2011-12-15T17:30:00.001-08:00

I hate getting dressed up. I especially hate getting dressed up on a Saturday afternoon for live theater. It’s so unnecessary. But my wife and mother both told me it wasrequired. What could I do? I sat in the theater, wearing a suit and tie, on a Saturday afternoon in December. I wasresentful and hating. Bah, humbug.

The play was called “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”

I’m watching the show and thinking about all the work Ineeded to get done. Grrrr. Stupid play.

At some point, a brat of a character named Gladys jumps out,in angel costume, and yells “SHAZZAM! For unto you a child is born” and shepointed right at me.

It was like taking a punch to the gut. I was mugged by Christmas. It snuck up on meand laid me out. All my resentments andgrumpiness drained away.

I have to pay attention this time of year, or I’ll miss thepoint. How about you?

Nightwatch video

2011-11-30T10:05:00.000-08:00

Operation Nightwatch: Food, Shelter, Hope from White Noise Productions on Vimeo.

A prayer for John

2011-11-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

How can I pray for John, who hobbles from his wheelchair tothe bed

In the shelter that is a poor substitute for a nursing home?

He was crushed by a car, body and spirit.

His bridges burned, John looks now, in half-hearted jest

For another bridge.

This one for jumping.

After 40-something years,there are no life-long friends. No familyto rally him,

No platoon members to save him, no co-workers to greet him,

no former neighbors or lodge brothers to slap him on theback and smile

Not a single sister, deacon, usher, or Sunday school teacher

From the store-front Missionary Baptist Church of hischildhood

Who will weep with him and treasure his soul.

And now, in a random encounter, he grips my hand and asksfor prayer.

I am a stranger.

How can I pray for John of the burned bridges and the brokenbody?

I sigh deeply, knowing .

His needs are mine too.

“Lord, grant us Wisdom to know Your will, and the strengthto do that.”

From these two things, come all the rest;

peace, joy, brothers, sisters, and greener pastures.

Several people were occupied

2011-10-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Occupy Seattle? What does it mean? In my ten minutes of occupying, I had a conversation with a homeless friend, listened to people pounding on empty buckets with drumsticks, and had a bottle of wine pushed at me by a very persistent activist.

"Have some. C'mon, Father, have a slug. I insist! Come on. You should have some."

I demurred.

As I was leaving, a pair of young people, oblivious to anything else, were standing on the edge of the plaza, limbs and lips locked tight. They were feeling the moment like no one else; the spray from the fountain, the pounding of the drums, the police chatting quietly across the street, the activist-sot, downtown Seattle, at night, in October, sans rain. Heady stuff.

The Intoxicated Evangelist

2011-10-07T00:23:00.000-07:00

Michelangelo's "Noah Drunk" Sistene Chapel

We stopped at a shelter - guys are watching TV. Suddenly a very drunk man sees me and shouts "Read something from my Bible" and then lurches around the room, grabs a Bible sitting on the table. We take turns reading, me choosing something from Isaiah which included a promise of fine aged wine in the coming good times. Probably not the best choice. He goes straight to Romans.

After several selections - back and forth, he says to me, in a not-so-loud drunken whisper, "I graduated Catholic. I went to war. This is all I have left," patting his Book.

And that is a sermon. Cue the organ.

Shady

2011-09-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

"Shady" isn't homeless any more, thank goodness. Nightwatch got him off the street, hopefully for good. Meanwhile, he gives us endless entertainment.

Some knucklehead gave Shady's telephone number to their bank, then defaulted on the loan. Every day or two, the bank calls Shady to find out if he's going to make good on his mortgage payment. Problem is, Shady is on the bottom end of Social Security Disability payments. He somehow manages to get by on $674 a month. I'm willing to bet the guy who gave the bank Shady's phone number had a mortgage payment bigger than Shady's total take-home.

You need something more to worry about when you're subsisting on nothing.

We asked Shady, "You ever have a mortgage?"

"No," he replied. "But I had a dog once."

That's about as close as Shady got to owning anything. That dog, and a few Elvis LPs.

Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette. . . .

2011-08-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

I’m pushing 30 years of involvement with Nightwatch. And this was a first.

On my usual rounds, I ran into a homeless woman in a motorized wheelchair. She’s been staying here, there, anywhere she can get help. She requires more personal care than the shelters are able to give. Incontinence has caused some shelters to close the door to her.

I decided to ask a difficult question. “Why don’t you go into a care facility? You’re surely eligible.”

“I was in one of those places for quite a while. But they take all your money. You’re left with $50 a month to spend on incidentals. And I’m a smoker.”

She’d rather be homeless than give up smoking. She’s paying a terrible price for her Camels.

Tuesday night memory

2011-08-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's nine p.m. (ok, a little after by now). Deacon Joe Curtis, from Saint James Cathedral in Seattle would be making his stops for the night.

In the old days, nearly 17 years ago, he would deliver sandwiches to Operation Nightwatch, prepared by parishioners for the 75 homeless folks (men and women) that we were helping back then. He would stop by the old Josephenum chapel at 2nd and Virginia (now Seattle's newest downtown Catholic parish, Christ our Hope.) Here would be a team of faithful, praying for the safety of those on the streets.

Back at 91 Wall Street in Belltown (now a Rudy's Barbershop, where Christian cuts my hair. Ironic?) there were St. James volunteers dishing up soup, passing out pieces of cake, handing out razors.

And Deacon Joe, with an escort or two, would walk the streets. Sometimes they bought someone a sandwich, sometimes they took a homeless guy to a shelter. The guy was retired banker with tons of health problems, and he went out until late on Tuesday nights twice a month until he was reduced to wheeling a walker into our new space on 14th Ave.S. Talk about commitment.

Yeah, he could be aggravating at times. He was methodical, slow, controlling. But most of all, he cared.

One story he told I'll never forget. In his frailty one night, as he was getting sandwiches out of his car, he slipped and fell on the grass in the parking strip. It was pouring rain, and a miserable line of people saw him go down hard. He broke his hip, and briefly lost consciousness. When he woke up, there was a homeless guy cradling him, holding his jacket over his head to divert the rainwater. "It's okay, help is on the way," the guy told him. And he stayed with him until the medics hauled Joe off to the ER.

It took Joe a lot of hard work to get back to Nightwatch. But that's who he was. Joe was someone who overcame many obstacles. Perfect? Nope. But he was someone who gave a damn about homeless people, and he didn't have to.

I miss him tonight. And I bet I'm not the only one.

Relief

2011-08-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

Relief comes in many forms.

Ice cream brought delighted smiles of residents at Tent City.

For others, relief is a bit more complicated. “We’ve been smelling a bit tart,” a shelter worker admitted. The anti-fungal cream was put into circulation almost immediately. It’s hard to know who will be happier, those with funky feet, or their near-neighbors.

Relief is sometimes hard to gauge.

A milkshake at Dick’s near midnight may bring relief for an artist with alternative internal wiring. Maybe the bartender was relieved that he was leaving with me.

I'm relieved too. Some of us recover more quickly from uncertainty than others though. For those with alternative wiring, the political debate of the past month has been horrifying. Will my check come? Will I become homeless again? There was relief, finally. But we have not recovered.

"I need chocolate!"

2011-07-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

In seventeen years, I've seen a lot I can't explain. This may be the weirdest, from 1997.

Nightwatch was located in the basement of a dreary building. Beating back the mice and cockroaches was a steady occupation.

My coworker KerriLyn and I were weary. Nightwatch was straining to meet the needs of homeless people who were coming for help in ever-increasing numbers.

There was a lull one afternoon. Suddenly, KerriLyn started jumping up and down. "I need chocolate!" she exclaimed, like some five-year old throwing a fit.

Whatever.

Maybe an hour later, a big Buick pulled up in the alley next to us. The guy opened his trunk, to show us his donation. The trunk was stuffed with candy bars. Enough for KerriLyn, and hundreds of homeless people.

I can't explain it without some reference to divine intervention. While I am grateful for the memory of this timely gift, I'm also thankful to celebrate my one-year anniversary of being sugar-free today.

Have a great 4th of July!

Take Eight

2011-06-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

For the past month, St. Mary's Catholic Church in Seattle has been taking eight guys from Operation Nightwatch, to sleep overnight.

Every week, the same eight guys are hauled up the hill to Saint Mary's. Two volunteers greet them. Mats are layed out, guys sit around chatting, reading, settling in. By 10:15 everyone - including the volunteers - are hunkered down.

I drove away last Saturday night wondering why more congregations couldn't do something like that. Once a week for a month, take eight guys. Find two volunteers.

Eight guys. Pick a night of the week. Try it for a month. Two volunteers. Coffee and a roll would be nice in the morning, but not required.

It would mean eight fewer guys sleeping outside. Think about it.

The face of homelessness

2011-05-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Danny was a worker. He lived in the doorway of Operation Nightwatch. The weekend he was supposed to return home to the Tri-Cities, he got a phone call. "Never mind. Dad died."

Every night Danny would help me by mopping the floor, and helping to get the last guy out the door after midnight. Then he would lay out his sleeping bag on some cardboard. Night after night after night.

I know that homeless people are seen as useless, lazy, addicted, mentally ill, throw-aways. It's easy to think that way, if you don't know anyone personally. But I have found my un-housed friends to be charming, hard-working, weary, forth-right, and generous. Yeah, they got problems. So do I. So do you.

Why does it have to be such a stinking hard time to figure out basic shelter?

This week Operation Nightwatch has been running about 190 to 200 people served every night. Sunday night we ended up sending 27 people out into the rain with a Metro ride ticket and a blanket. Men and women.

Saturday night we got 8 guys into Saint Mary's Catholic Church. As I was driving away, I wondered why it is so hard to find 2 volunteers to spend one night a month hosting 8 homeless guys. Can you tell me why?

Just so you know. We deliver :) In case you want to start something at your church or synagogue.

Father Kim and his foreign language

2011-05-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Father Kim has been going on the street several times a month for the past 12 years.

Like many ministers, he is bilingual. He speaks Montanan English, and is also fluent in Episcopalian. This is very handy for me, because Free Methodists are poorly schooled in Anglican idioms.

Without Father Kim, I might never have known that a burse sits on top of the chalice, paten and veil, serves to hold a corporal and often hides an extra purificator.

I recently asked Father Kim about the letters "O.P." after a ministers name. He told me he'd check with with his "resident oblate."

Oh.

Perhaps every family should have an oblate. I'm pretty sure I don't have an oblate at my house, unless someone's not telling me something, which is possible.

His oblate emailed. Apparently, O.P. is Latin for Ordo Praedicatorum. I figured it out. Can you?

Thank you, Father Kim. We have a lot of stories, you and I.

Dubious Record

2011-04-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Last night, 205 desperate people came to Nightwatch for help. The final 45 minutes were painful, handing out hats, talking about options, passing out blankets and bus tickets. There were 28 men and women with no rudimentary shelter of any kind. Every shelter in Seattle was full.

The full range of human emotions were demonstrated. Rage, humor, compassion. (One guy took a blanket, then gave it away.) Sadness. Lots and lots of sadness.

April is the worst month to be homeless in Seattle. Surprised?

City Hall housed 75 guys all winter; the Frye Apartment lobby was temporary home to 25-30 women, King County Admin building hosted 50 men, Angeline's winter shelter housed 40 women. There was a winter shelter in Redmond for 40 people. These all were closed April 1. One night, you're on a mat in a warm place, and then next night, good luck. April weather.

One final image from our Thursday night of pathos. An older woman, pushing her walker, dragging a travel bag and her little dog on a leash, was one of those going without shelter. She quietly asked to have us call an ambulance. "Where would you like to go?" we asked.

"Virginia Mason."

I gave her and the dog a lift to the ER. Hopefully the belligerant drunk at the entrance would keep the security people busy enough, they won't notice her sleeping in a chair in the waiting room.

It's 12:15 a.m. Tonight is another night. God save us.

If you take up knitting after reading this, keep to dark colors!

2011-04-08T11:54:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, late at night, I’m not feeling very good. The late night work often gets tacked onto an already busy work week, and can feel like one more thing to do. Sometimes I go out for my weekly visits, wondering “Why am I here” or some variation on the theme.

It was one of those ho-hum nights. “Am I really doing anybody any good?” So far, it didn’t seem so. I made a stop at a homeless encampment, I hung around Nightwatch. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the endless drizzle. Bleah.

Then, I ran into a buddy in the south Lake Union neighborhood. He’s an old guy, getting around in a wheelchair. His explanation: “The Army thought it was cheaper to give me a $500 wheelchair than to save my toes.” There he sat on the street corner, in his wheelchair, in the drizzle. Bare-headed and bald.

“Hey, I got what you need,” I told him, fishing around in my bag for a LOLKC. (That’s a Little Old Lady Knit Cap, in case you were wondering.) This particular LOLKC was an atrocious color – baby blanket blue or something. Plus, it was pretty thin wool, a sort of open weave. “You know what? Here’s another one,” and I pulled out an olive drab LOLKC. “You put one on top of the other and voila. It looks like you are covering dreadlocks. . . "

“The girls are going to love this!” he said.

We both got the lift we needed.

What is the solution?

2011-04-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

I’m standing outside a shelter, 11:30 at night. You might think all my stories start this way. You might be right.

One friend has been stuck in this situation forever. I mean, seven years ago, he came to my house for Christmas. Now, here he is, still on the street.

It’s wearing on him. He looks, and feels 10 years older than his chronological age. He is witty. Quite charming, actually. His days are booked solid with survival. It’s a full-time challenge. Food, hygiene, classes, more classes, more food. He comes to Nightwatch at 9:00 pm, leaves for the shelter across downtown, where he gets a little sleep, then gets rousted out at 5:30 am and starts all over again.

He needs to get into housing. He needs to get more income than the paltry $289 welfare he is paid now. But no one will house him, and no one will hire him. So he lives and moves on the margins, wasting away. He’s stuck.

Did I mention he’s a Level 3 sex offender?

I have no clue about the harm he’s done. And, I don’t know what has been done to him, though I can guess. All I know is, no one is better off having him live the way he lives.

What is the solution?

A Yesler Terrace memory.

2011-03-03T08:29:00.000-08:00

I've been reading "Profanity Hill" -- about the relocation of the low-income residents of Yesler Hill, before the construction of Yesler Terrace. This Seattle Housing Authority project was the first integrated public housing project in the country in 1941, and now is going to be redeveloped. Resources for poor people are being reduced. The replacement - mixed used commercial and higher end residential, with "affordable" housing mixed in - will mean a net loss of truly affordable units.

Profanity Hill was named because of all the cussing of the lawyers and clerks who had to make the hike up the hill to get to the old courthouse.

The book was written by Irene Burns Miller, the social worker who was charged with relocating the 1,000+ residents who were living there before the new Yesler Terrace housing could be built. At the time, residents were sure that rich people were going to take over. Now, 70 years later, it seems their fears were justified.

In the early 1980s I was volunteering at Operation Nightwatch. In those days, a single volunteer might find shelter for 30 or 40 homeless people from our office in the Seven Seas Hotel, above the Lusty Lady on First Avenue and University. (Somehow, that building has avoided the wrecking ball. It sits like an orphan, surrounded by towers.)

This particular night I was able to find shelter for everyone who came into Nightwatch, except the last two people - a couple. I couldn't find any shelter that could handle a couple, and the hotel voucher system was reserved for people with young children. (Nothing has changed in 30 years, by the way; except maybe Tent City would accept them now.) So, what could I do at one AM?

I had a mentally ill friend who lived in Yesler Terrace. I decided to call.

"David, would you be willing to host a couple in your living room for one night?" I must have been crazy myself to suggest such an arrangement. David was just fine with it - he was schizophrenic, but well regulated. It was the couple I wasn't so sure about.

I drove the couple up the hill from Pioneer Square, parked, went into David's unit. "What am I doing?" I thought. I told the couple about his problems, that he was pretty much okay, and this was only for one night.

They probably slept better than I did. I was relieved the next day, when I called David, to find out they had no problems, everyone was alive. I had dodged a bullet. Again.

Bob Riggle, Nightwatch volunteer

2011-02-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

By now most folks in Seattle have seen this AP photo of Seattle couple Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay.

Their tragic death at the hands of Somali pirates this week has made big news. So sad.

We heard about Bob's sailing prowess, and sense of adventure. But there's more to his life.

Bob Riggle was a Nightwatch volunteer for a very long time. Before Nightwatch had a kitchen, Bob was there, late at night, helping homeless people get a little sustenance, find a place to go, don a jacket against the cold weather.

In those days, Operation Nightwatch was working out of a few rooms in the old Seven Seas Hotel, a long flight of stairs above the Lusty Lady, on Seattle's First Avenue. Before the Seattle Art Museum and the gentrification of downtown, Nightwatch was out there, trying to do whatever was needed for people on the bottom. And Bob was there, caring for them, when it was really a rough place, in hellish conditions.

Without people like Bob, Nightwatch wouldn't be doing what we do now every night.

There was a lot more to the guy than sailing. Just thought you should know.

Things are better. I think.

2011-02-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

Saw my old friend.

His life is better. I think

because he's got his own place.

A little room.

{jump} Sorry. Cockroach.

But really. Not much has changed.

He's more alone now.

And he doesn't want to be.

He wants to pray.

But not alone. He wants to pray with someone.

I can do that. Now I know where he is. We've got a plan.

Me. Him. God. And maybe the bug. It's all good.

Luck and Survival

2011-02-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

With my bum ankle and everything, I've been staying closer to my desk this week, more than usual.

I just happened to be giving a tour of our building to a college student, and was out on the sidewalk, for a random minute.

It was just the right minute, for someone. A guy with a backpack stood there.

"I know I'm not supposed to be here until 9:00 pm. Is there anyway I can come back tonight and get in?" He was so polite, and trying to do the right thing.

I handed the guy my business card, and silently cursed the stupid processes we institute to manage our little lifeboat.

We can't let every homeless person just show up at our doors and get help. We tried that. The crowd overwhelmed our ability to respond. So we make newbies get a ticket from Bread of Life Mission or the Downtown Emergency Service Center. These are limited in number. We used to give our donors a little "Get into Nightwatch" card to give people on the street. We even had to stop that; the crush of needy people buried us.

To the homeless guy wandering around, dog-tired, I am so sorry. It sucks.

2,442 people without shelter. That sucks too.

Good Luck

2011-01-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

It was just one of those

single odd moments in

a pack-rat-full garage night

of moments.

An old man in the homeless shelter

was describing in great joy

the sensation of gaffing

a seventy-three pound

king salmon,

back in the day, before

everything

else

got away

from him.

We all murmured

quiet admiration

for his grand achievement,

and then quietly thought

what might have brought him low.

And then

another patron

stood behind the Great Fisherman

and rubbed his buzzed-cut head

with great enthusiasm.

"For luck!" he proclaimed.

The room laughed.

"You got the wrong guy,"

the Great Fisherman exclaimed.

We laughed again. But we all felt the pain.

David's got me covered

2011-01-07T00:24:00.000-08:00

David could barely keep his eyes open. "Maybe just a little. . . tipsy." So he said. Maybe.

We talked for awhile, about nothing in particular. He likes his place in the shelter, after so many years sleeping outside.

"Are you okay?" he suddenly asked me.

"What do you mean?"

"You got a place tonight?"

"Oh yeah. I'm good." I think about my warm bed, surrounded by various comforts.

"Because, if you needed a place, I'd find you a room or something," David assured me. "We have to take care of each other. We're all family here." He waved his arm around the TV room.

Indeed.

I've been talking to homeless people steadily for twenty eight years now. As far as I can remember, this is the first time I was offered accomodations for the night. It was the sweetest moment ever.

Down to the Wire

2010-12-30T14:47:00.000-08:00

About 31 hours and we close the books on 2010, as of this writing.

You intended to help out. Every time you drive or walk past a homeless person, you feel the urge to do something.

But. Well, we all get busy.

Last night Operation Nightwatch helped 162 people get inside. It was 24 degrees.

It costs us $8.42 per person per night. Will you be a part of the Nightwatch miracle this year?

Christ Climbed Down

2010-12-25T22:07:00.000-08:00

CHRIST climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candy canes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Man's Best Friend by Homeless Poet

2010-12-17T15:44:00.000-08:00

This is from the Homeless Poet, given to me at 10 pm last night:

"When I was young I had a dog. The dog went everywhere with me and we were very close. You could say that the dog and I were best friends. And I remember someone told me that "the dog is man's best friend." And at the time that made a lot of sense to me because the five things that I was looking for in a friend, the dog had everyone beat at.

"And they are:
1) undivided attention
2) unconditional forgiveness
3) uncommon valor
4) complete honesty
5) unquestionable loyalty

"I would get undivided attention from the dog whenever I would call his name.

"I would receive unconditional forgiveness from the dog whenever I would say no or after I would have to punish the dog. The dog would forgive me every time and never bring it back up or hold it against me.

"It would be very uncommon valor for any friend to give up their life so that mine could continue, but it would not be uncommon for the dog to do just that because the dog would.

"Even though the dog and I do not communicate with words, the dog can tell me when he is mad or happy by growling or wagging his tail. And he is always telling me the truth this way, which is complete honesty.

"The dog's unquestionable loyalty leaves no doubt in my mind what side he will be on, in any fight I could or would be involved in.

"Yes, the dog had every friend I had beat by a country mile.

"About ten years later my dog died and I did miss my best friend, but about a year after, I found a new friend who was the only one who had the dog beat at the five things that the dog had everyone else beat at. And to my amazement his name was dog spelled backwards. . .

"So now I have to say that God is man's best friend."

I thought it was an interesting essay from someone without a roof over their head. But then, my best Friend was homeless too.

Baby, it's COLD outside

2010-11-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm exhausted. I can't imagine what my homeless friends are going through, trying avoid hypothermia. Last night I found myself wearing three knit caps. The third hat was hideously ugly, lime green, nursing home craft style. But functional!

Sleeping bags delivered, hats distributed. Turkey dinner for 165 cold, wet homeless people. Now what?

Oh yeah. Our fund raiser was cancelled. So we've got to do something snappy, like blog and Facebook appeals. Classy.

Checks: Nightwatch, PO Box 21181, Seattle, WA 98111
or
Secure online donations, click here.

Your help is absolutely essential in getting people safely off the street, all year long.

What do I believe? Hmmmm.

2010-11-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

The scene: crowded bar, after a UW Husky win.

“What do you believe?” My new friend on the stool next to me was looking at me, smiling, pretty tipsy, slightly apologetic. And waiting.

The question hung there for a moment. I thought about the Apostle’s Creed, an ancient statement of faith. Not a very good answer, under the circumstances.

I thought about all the variables. Substitutionary atonement, amillenialism. Health care for all.

I decided to keep it simple: “I’m a Christian. A Methodist.”

“Hey, me too,” he slurred, satisfied.

Five-year-old's solution to homelessness

2010-11-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Why should I be so nervous facing 23 five-year-olds?

Well, I was.

They had worked very hard as a class, collecting socks for homeless people. My job was to tell them something about Operation Nightwatch and the problems of being homeless.

I looked at the mountain of socks they had collected: five hundred thirty-seven pairs. Pretty amazing!

I described what it is like to sleep in a shelter. "You mean, they don't have their own bedrooms?" Nope.

One kid raised his hand. "If they don't have a place to sleep, why don't they just call their grandma?"

Why didn't we think of that? It's a really good idea.

And actually, for the past four or five months, Nightwatch has judiciously been sending people home to grandma. Or wifey. Or brother. Whereever they might need to go, to get off the street. Fifteen people and counting.

Thanks for your support.

Am I my brother's keeper?

2010-10-21T15:31:00.000-07:00

"Listen; your brother's blood is crying out from the ground."

It’s 9:15 pm on a mild night in October. I’m out on the sidewalk chatting with homeless folks, trying to get knit hats on the bare heads of people waiting for food and shelter.

The line is peaceful, gentle kidding, conversational, and orderly. Except one guy. Everyone is watching him, as he paces back and forth in the parking strip, disconnected from people and reality.

Just about everything about the guy is off. He looks like he gave himself a haircut in a dark room. His stream of consciousness jabber is barely recognizable as English. He is restlessly running his hands up under his shirt as he paces.

There were a few muttered comments in line. “Whack job.” The entire line of homeless people looked at him warily.

“Here’s someone I need to talk to,” I thought to myself.

I positioned myself in front of the pacer, so he had to stop. “I’m Rick,” I said, sticking out my hand.

Egad. His hand was huge, beefy, muscular. Somehow, in and through the stream-of-consciousness jabber, a conversation took place. He quieted down. The pacing slowed, stopped. The jabber morphed into stories, of working in Alaska, and living with a son, but not any more.

In fact, I’m told, no shelter in town will let him stay any longer.

The conversation ends abruptly. He wanders off into the uncertain night.

It may be easy for you to shrug. "What concern is it of mine?" Sometimes turning away from a problem is as brutal as bludgeoning a younger brother to death.

The ground itself will give testimony to our failure to care.

Why I got home at 3:30 a.m.

2010-10-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

I have these stories in my head going back 28 years. Don't know where else to dump them.

A downtown hotel clerk called the Nightwatch office. He had two underage kids, a brother and a sister. He couldn't rent them a room, could I help.

"Sure," I said. "I'll be over and talk to them, but it won't be until 2:00 am when I get done here."

Here I am, sitting in the hotel lobby, talking to two very weary teenagers. This is their sad story.

"Mom & Dad left us at home for the weekend. We live in Maple Valley. We thought that since they left us alone, they wouldn't mind if we drove down to Portland to visit our friends. While we were in Portland, the engine on the family car blew up. So our friends put us on the bus to Seattle. But we got to Seattle too late to catch a Metro bus back to our house in Maple Valley."

Easy breezy. Get in the car.

It was a pretty quiet ride. I wish I could have heard their explanation to Mom and Dad the next night, to the question, "Where's the car?"

Who are you?

2010-10-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

Person in distress:
you made my phone rattle
at 1:00 a.m.

It's not that 1:00 a.m.
is an ungodly hour
or that my dream
was so especially delicious.

I am distressed today,
because, realizing you woke me,
you refused to talk.

"Who ARE you?"

My question hung there
unanswered in the night.

I could have helped.
I would have helped
if you needed it.

I know who I am
at 1:00 a.m.
I am your friend
who will come to you.
That's what I do.
But, who are you?

A small moment in the night.

2010-09-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

It's weird.

If I look for "dapper homeless" I get George Clooney for dapper, and a classic Bowery Skid Road type. I guess they're both rather loveable.

Last night about 9:00 pm I was in my car, pulling away from the curb, when there was a loud rap on my passenger side window.

I jumped a foot. Some homeless guy, looking more more like a college student than a stereotype, wanted to talk. I rolled the window down, wondering if I was going to get panhandled, or hear some complaint.

"Hey," he said, "I just want to thank you guys for all the socks. Everybody loves it. I thought you should know."

What happened the rest of the night didn't really matter so much.

Sometimes the aggravations are worth it. Yep.

Sock It to Homelessness, October 10, 1:30 - 3:00 at Operation Nightwatch.

Rick Reynolds Endorses Tent City 3

2010-09-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, it’s not the first time I’ve jumped in on this debate, but here goes.

Tent City 3 should be able to go to any church that will have it.

Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of the opposition is built on fear and nonsense. I would – and have – worked, lived near, and spend time in Tent City. Almost weekly.

I was there when the tents were first laid out in a grassy meadow close to downtown. I have followed them to nearly every stop they’ve made along the way. (I hesitate to say EVERY, just in case I’m forgetting something!)

Here’s what I say.

In a community where homeless people are forced to live outside because we don’t pay them enough to live, because we have a broken social service net, where health care is for the wealthy, and social security doesn’t pay for basic housing, we have to make some allowances. Some neighborhoods think they should be immune from homeless people. But those neighbors aren’t being neighbors at all.

Fear and hysteria have been used in the past in Maple Leaf neighborhood. As late as 1940 this language was found in deeds for houses sold in Maple Leaf:

“No person of any race other than the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot, except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant.” htp://depts.washington.edu/civilr/database.htm

Why would someone want to do that? They were afraid. It would damage their neighborhood, put their children at harm, be unsightly, cause distress to the weak and vulnerable, lead to crime. All the same bogus arguments being kicked around today.

And to all those churches who have confused ministry with the business of providing expensive day care to middle and upper middle class families – are you running the day care, or is the day care running you? Just curious. You’re letting business and commerce make your decision for you. What good is that sort of faith?

And would the people name-dropping Nightwatch at public meetings knock it off? Tent City provides a critical need to this city that we need. Desperately. So there.

Nothing better.

2010-08-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

There is nothing better
than looking into the smiling face
of a no-longer-homeless person.

It doesn’t matter
how bad the dental work,
the smile
leaves me smiling too --
every time.

Cathedral bells
cannot sound any more joyful
than the jingle of keys
in the pocket
of the newly housed.

What's Next for Johnnie?

2010-08-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

“Johnnie” is nearly 80. For the past 30 years he has been living in an “efficiency apartment” – which means, bathroom down the hall, and cooking on a hot plate.

Did you know such places still exist on First Hill in Seattle?

Now Johnnie has to go. The landlord wants him out, plain and simple. They handed blind Johnnie various notices; he’s blind, but he’s also obstinate. Who knows why things are ending up like this?

Johnnie walks tentatively along the sidewalk, almost feeling his way. He doesn’t ride the bus because he won’t know where he is when he gets there. He walks to the store. He has done pretty well with his various routines. Now all those are going to get thrown off. How will he survive?

His last day in his apartment is August 31.

Finding an apartment may be easy. Getting Johnnie oriented to his new surroundings, making sure he has food and keeps his place up – that will be another thing.

Johnnie is a project. Any volunteers to help figure things out?

Mother of Exiles

2010-07-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Don's Goodbye

2010-06-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

Don wasn't much for pomp.

If you saw him downtown, you might think "Unibomber." Gray hair and whiskers, hood pulled low. He kept to himself, pretty much.

Thanks to his few friends and Nightwatch, Don got off the street. For the last five years of his life, he had his own place in a unit underwritten by our donors. Before that, his bed was cardboard, for years.

At his burial there was a 21-gun salute, taps, a few words of condolence, poorly read. Then the flag was removed from his casket, smartly folded, and presented to the office worker Chris who was the closest to being real family. "On behalf of the President of the United States, the Department of the Air Force, and a grateful nation, we offer this flag for the faithful and dedicated service of your departed love one." Two tours in Vietnam, one in the Navy, one in the Air Force. Don didn't talk about it much.

I was moved. Another homeless-no-more vet laid to rest. Nothing more to be done. I'll miss Don. Torn coat and all.

Anyone else sick of this?

2010-06-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

The cost of war hits homeless people hard. First, more homeless people are veterans than the general population. Second, we don't really pay the full cost of caring for the walking wounded. And we could sure stand to transfer a few billion out of the war budget and into life-sustaining activities. The social consequences of this current action will be with us for decades. Do you feel safer? Didn't think so.

You want to end homelessness? Knock off the fighting. I'm just saying.

Sorry, Neighbor

2010-05-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

This is a public apology to one of the neighbors of Operation Nightwatch.

You called me at 8:45 on Sunday night, to complain about a particular homeless guy who has been lurking around your building, where you live and work. He's startled you in the stairway, uses the yard as a latrine, and has been generally bothering you. It was perfectly right for you to call me.

I was pretty snippy. Down right rude. I was also doubtful that he was one of "ours." See, most of the homeless people we serve are intent on getting to shelter downtown. They don't hang out in the neighborhood during the day. If we see them, we warn them and then we send them away - barring them from receiving services from us. But I was wrong. He was a Nightwatch patron.

Please forgive me.

One of our workers had already confronted him that night. He was at the bus stop and told us he was waiting for the bus. After your call, we went back to the bus stop - security and supervisor. They told the offender he was barred. So he no longer belongs to us.

He's profoundly mentally ill. We had problems in the past, getting him off the streets for the night. He didn't understand the most basic information. His mental illness is complicated by language and cultural barriers. I guess he's no longer our problem.

What happens now?

Big "BOB", not so big Bob

2010-05-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

From Santa Monica: "The criminal complaint filed Monday accused Cruz, 48, of trying to hire David Carrington and David Walters -- homeless men who go by the street names Little Dave and Big Dave -- to murder Jennifer Campbell. It was not immediately clear which was Little Dave and which was Big Dave."

This story is funny/sad for so many reasons.

First, why would you hire homeless guys to put a hit on your wife? Those are the charges against Juan-Carlos Cruz, former celebrity chef. Did he buy into the stereotype of "homeless guys = thugs?" Doesn't he know that most homeless folks do the Right Thing.

Second, the reporter says it was not immediately clear who was Little Bob, and who was Big Bob. I'm just betting if you meet them together, you're gonna know. Either that, or they both should change to Medium Bob.

The story unravels when the cops bust Big Dave (or was it Little Dave?) for the crime of loitering. That means he was standing around and bothering someone. He said something sensible to the cops, like, "You guys should leave me alone, but get on this D-list celebrity for trying to hire me to murder his wife." Then Little Dave chips in, "Me too!"

Anyway, the cops put Big & Little Bobs into a cheap room, supplied them with some pizza and beer. And the chef is arrested.

Not doing the crime pays. Most homeless people got that.

Got time for a homeless family?

2010-04-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Mom, Dad, 4.5 kids. Actually mom is due on my birthday at the end of May. I met them at 11:30 last night.

They're in a hotel for the weekend. The YWCA is interviewing them. We got them groceries today.

Then tonight I got a call.

The one year old had an ear infection. They were taking him to the ER on Metro when he started convulsing. Aid car was summoned, Children's hospital gave them anti-biotic, said the seizure was from the fever.

So, Children's hospital said they have to get to a clinic IN BELLEVUE on Saturday for a follow up visit. What????

"Did you tell them you were homeless and having to use public transportation to get from Greenlake/Aurora to the Eastside? With a sick kid?" Yes, she told them.

Any volunteers? email me if you can help with these folks.

Did I mention that all six of them are adorable? Not that it matters. . . .

The cruelest joke

2010-04-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

Two old men wandered in to Nightwatch. One guy was probably 68. The other looked to be 80. Maybe it was the wheelchair. I hear it adds years. His 80-year-old-foot stuck straight out, a new cast from toe to knee.

"He's a veteran," the younger friend said. Their fear and doubt was palpable. Around them, the usual Nightwatch crowd was swirling about, eating, asking for socks, anxious. 167 bodies served this night.

This is where we are as a society. An 80-year-old vet with a broken foot, in a wheelchair, has no place to go on a cold wet Seattle night. Even Nightwatch had nothing to offer. He can't get onto a mat on the floor by himself.

The number 36 bus is just two blocks away. The VA Hospital is probably their only refuge. They take a few bus tickets and head out the door. I feel sick.

It is 10:00 pm. Nightwatch will end up giving out blankets to a dozen guys tonight. No place to go. And April 1 the winter shelter at the King County building will close until next October.

No fooling. The cruelest joke.

Sometimes it just sucks.

2010-03-11T23:43:00.000-08:00

Tonight is a crappy, rainy night in Seattle. In a few minutes I'm going home to crawl into bed with a warm peace-loving red-blooded woman who has loved me for 34 years.

I don't really have to care about the fact that ten or fifteen guys walked out Operation Nightwatch with absolutely no place to go. We fed them, let them sit around for awhile, gave them socks and a wool blanket and ticket for the #7 bus to nowhere.

But I do care. That's what makes this so tough.

In two more weeks the winter shelters are going to shut down. Another 50 guys are going to be dumped outside, and 40 women will be pushed out sometime in April.

The One Night Count was down 5%? Sure doesn't seem like it tonight.

Homeless and old - a bad combination

2010-03-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

Homelessness is an especially dangerous state for an aging person.

According to a 2007 HUD report, people who experience homelessness for long periods of time simply do not reach age 62 as often as the general population. (HUD, The Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, 2007).

Premature death most often results from acute and chronic medical conditions aggravated by homeless life rather than either mental illness or substance abuse (O’Connell, James J. Premature Mortality in Homeless Populations: A Review of the Literature, 2005).

Despite the risk factors, the total number of homeless elderly has grown in the past two decades (Carl Cohen, “The Aging Homeless,” SUNY Health Science Center, Brooklyn, NY). Throughout the nation, there are at least 9 seniors waiting for every occupied unit of affordable housing (Nat’l. Coalition for the Homeless, “Homelessness Among Elderly Persons”). The need for affordable housing for seniors living in poverty will continue.

Meanwhile, even basic overnight shelter for older adults (say, over 50, no offense!) is scarce.

Homeless Family Move -- this Sunday the 28th

2010-02-25T23:57:00.000-08:00

OK, I’m a bit of a knucklehead, but I have so many friends bail me out. . . . Here’s another opportunity.

Sunday afternoon we’re packing the truck for a homeless family moving to Spokane. They’ve been in transitional housing for the past 16 months. Nightwatch friends have helped them with furniture, trips to the Puyallup fair, the initial hotel room, car repairs. It has been a truly miraculous saga, which included emergency carotid artery surgery for Dad.

We’re looking for able bodies from about 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm. There are a bunch of stairs, some heavy furniture, likely aggravation. Who’s in? J

Email me at downtowner@msn.com. You are the best.

If you can’t make it and want to contribute to the costs of the truck and driver, gas fare, and incidentals, let me know. I’ve collected some. Need about $300 more at this point.

Homeless Family? Not now.

2010-02-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

They were living in their car when I met them in November, 2008. Nightwatch put them into a hotel room. The YWCA followed with temporary housing. Facebook friends and Nightwatch board members got them furniture.

Phil & Cathy and their four kids are moving into their own subsidized permanent apartment on March 1st, 2010. Just one problem: it's in Spokane.

So, who wants to match my $50? I figure $500 for the rental truck and driver, gas for both vehicles. Let me know if you want to help out. We need some muscle too, at both ends. If you have Spokane connections, shout out.

Yippee! So happy for them all. Thanks to all the people who showered Christmas gifts and baby-sitting too.

Almost Midnight

2010-01-22T15:56:00.000-08:00

It's almost midnight. We're ready to tell nine guys that they're out of luck, no more shelter in the city of Seattle for them.

The phone rings. "How many guys you send us so far?" one of the shelter workers asks.

"76"

That shelter has a stated capacity of 75.

"How many guys are left?"

"Nine."

"OK, go ahead and send them."

Whew. Let there be peace in this place, and peace on the streets.

One Legged Cowboy and the Rat

2010-01-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

11:55 pm and the Nightwatch Shelter Dispatch Center was empty. Three of us had made the rounds, delivering socks, blankets, and conversation along the way.

Our security guy, Theo, said "There's one more guy in the bathroom, changing his bandages."

Great.

A minute later the One Legged Cowboy comes out of the bathroom. Worker Gwen gives him a shelter placement ticket and explains where to catch the bus to the Millionair Club, a local charity that gives space up for 75 homeless guys from Nightwatch. He's never been homeless before this.

{{sigh}} What can you do?

"Want a ride?" Silly question.

He hops into my beat-up Subaru. "How'd you lose you leg, if you don't mind me asking."

"Bull-riding."

No kidding. Apparently bull-riding is dangerous. His leg was crushed beyond repair. We had a nice conversation. Wonder if he'll call me sometime.

Not every night do you help a one-legged cowboy. And not every night do you run over a rat. Yeah. That happened too. The cowboy was pretty impressed. The rat was caught in the middle of the intersection, froze in my headlights, and a slight swerve was successful, in terms of pest control at least.

This morning the crows are happy, and the one-legged cowboy is hopeful.

A Christmas story from yesterday

2009-12-19T11:01:00.000-08:00

Need a little Christmas cheer? Here's a story from someone out buying gloves as presents for our homeless friends at Operation Nightwatch:

I am at Sears buying gloves (Costco was sold out). A man approaches me asking why I am buying so many gloves. I tell him they are for Nightwatch and he says "Oh good, I will go there tonight. Someone stole my tent and I'm cold."

I told him to pick out any gloves he wanted and I would get them for him on the spot. He couldn't believe it and started telling everyone that passed, "She is an angel, I found an angel." My young son wished him Merry Christmas. My other son helped count the gloves to make sure we had enough for ALL the homeless men.

Thank you for inspiring the life lesson of helping others. Kristie

Poof

2009-12-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I leave Nightwatch at the end of the night feeling so great about what happened.

Not last night.

It had promise. Tent City friends, bar patrons, everyone was in a holiday mood. Much good cheer.

We got back to the Nightwatch shelter dispatch center. "People responding to internal stimulus" is the clinical term. Nightwatch is where mentally ill people go because there is not much of a system to help them.

Outside, a woman asks for a hotel voucher. Just had surgery. She fears infection. She wants a place to rest during the day, and oh yeah, where she can be with her man. Can we help her for a week?

This sort of request kills me. What she wants is $300 worth of hotel vouchers. I got nothing for her. I hate saying no. Sometimes I don't have a choice. We have shelter space for her, space for her man. Just not in the same place. And not so much comfort either.

My Christmas balloon went poof.

Crazy numbers

2009-12-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

Crisis, economic meltdown, unemployment.

This is supposed to drive the number of homeless people through the roof, right?

Well, there are some old-school shelters wondering where all the homeless people are. Numbers are down.

We've got theories. And that's all they are at this point. Alien abduction is not on the list.

Landlords may be getting less picky. If you've had an eviction, for any reason whatsoever, it follows you. Landlords won't rent. In fact the system is crazy. If a previous landlord takes you to court, and you win your case (that is, the landlord loses), the very fact that you were taken to court will be in the record, and will make it hard for you to rent ever again. But with the dicey economy, landlords may be more willing to go with a person who has cash in hand, even with a spotty rental history.

Domestic tranquility may be required. Homeless people talk about their situation. "Why you homeless?" I ask. Sheepish look. "My old lady kicked me out." When things are really tough, you might put up with that annoying boyfriend/roommate/cousin/spouse, just to stay off the street. "I can't kick them out, I need their share of the rent." Or something like that.

More resources in the hinterland. "Homeless" in Seattle used to mean 1st Avenue, Pioneer Square, and environs. But the homeless population is present now in suburban communities, small towns, and rural areas. The services are starting to grow outside of downtown. Tent City in Redmond? Shelters in Kent? This would have been unheard of fifteen years ago. There may be plenty more homeless people, but they're further scattered.

Better outplacement. Don't hate me, but there could be better outplacement, thanks to the efforts of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, and the 10-year plan. People in shelters get into transitional programs and permanent housing faster. It might be true. I'd like to think so.

Ah, well. The One Night Count is coming up, January 28/29, 2010. We shall see.

Tent City remains full.

Today's favorite note

2009-11-13T12:31:00.001-08:00

This note came in the mail today with a donation. Can you believe it?

Who finds $50?

Who, then, gives it away? Pretty awesome.

What a solemn responsibility, to use what we've been given wisely, to help people in need.

Listen to the cabbies

2009-11-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

I walked a half-dozen young people through St. Martin de Porres Shelter last night while doing a “homeless tour.” I always check with staff, and try to avoid the fish-bowl problem – not wanting to put homeless people on display. But educating people is important for charity and advocacy. St. Martin’s is filled with “old” men. “Old” in homeless parlance is anyone over age 50. Apparently the interest was running both ways. As my group of lovely young people were leaving, there was a smattering of applause from the shelter residents.

Homeless people and home-d people. There is no difference. We need the same things. We need to tell our story. We need attention. We need to be treated with respect. And most of all, we need love.

So many of our homeless friends are ignored, or worse. All day long.

Four weeks ago I was in a car crash. I stopped at a light, it turned green, I turned left, and from out of nowhere, a pickup truck ran the red light. The woman truck driver jumped out of the car and started yelling at me. Was I crazy? I wondered.

But a lowly cab driver saw the whole thing. He yelled out his window to me: “She ran the light, she’s crazzzzy!!!!” (The full enthusiasm of the Ethiopian cab driver was such a delight, and can’t be captured in writing.)

It took almost three weeks for the cabbie’s testimony to get from one insurance company to another. No one was paying attention. Finally, today, someone paid attention. My car was towed to the repair shop after three weeks of sitting. The right person finally heard the cabbie’s story. Thank God.

That’s how it often is. We don’t pay much attention to the foreign voice, the inarticulate, the uneducated, the marginalized. The life of the city, of commerce, politics, the news, just sweeps on by. We’re all poorer for it.

Let’s pay attention to the cabbies, the homeless guy on the corner, the leper outside the gate.

Some sort of record?

2009-10-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Brother Dave & I parked the car in White Center, took about 10 steps on the sidewalk, if that.

"HEYYY! Are you ministers?" a woman asked. "Would you pray for me?" Sure.

She starts yelling at her friends, loitering outside a tavern. "Come over here, you need prayer!" One guy joined us, she kept yelling. "We need all the prayer we can get, come on," but there were no more takers. So we held hands, the four of us, and asked for God's strength and grace and healing.

It had to be some sort of a record for Operation Nightwatch -- 10 seconds from parking the car to responding to someone on the street.

I'm gonna need a stopwatch from now on.

My boring life

2009-10-09T12:10:00.001-07:00

People make a big deal over Nightwatch and I get a bunch of unwarranted credit for the “exotic,” when actually it is pretty mundane.

Take last night. I met a new catholic deacon at our shelter dispatch point. Volunteers were cooking dinner for our homeless friends. The Dick’s Burger guy arrived. I visited Tent City, bringing twenty-five bucks worth of Oreos (probably the best thing I did all day, had no idea these would be so popular). Successfully found protesters sleeping outside city council person Bruce Harrell’s home, where he was holding forth in dialog with about a dozen of the folks. It was 10:00 pm. From here I stopped at one of my favorite bars, where one patron presented me with a bag of donations: razors, candy, an editorial they liked. Another patron tried to give me cash – which I turned down. I mean, taking a $100 bill in a bar just seems bad form to me.

The Oreos were the high point, along with the bartender paying for my refreshment himself. Wouldn’t even give me change so I could leave a tip.

Back at the ranch at midnight, turns out we had a good night. Everyone was civil and only three guys had no place to go. Out of 179 homeless men and women served, not too shabby.

Yep. Boring.

Tent City in Providence shut down

2009-10-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

Providence (n): Divine guidance or care; God, conceived as the power guiding and sustaining human destiny.

Ironic, but apparently the city fathers of Providence, Rhode Island feel as though they have no role in care for homeless people. They ordered the closure of a tent city which was erected on private land, because the tents did not meet local building codes. In the words of other well-known New Englanders: BoooOOOOo-gus. Better for homeless people to be unregulated, under a bridge?

Read more.

Promote the general welfare

2009-10-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

OK, so now that Terminal 107 is safely back in the hands of the Port of Seattle, I think it's only fair to ask the port commissioners what they are going to do with the space, since they've spent thousands of public dollars to evict people who have no place to go.

Night before last, Operation Nightwatch turned away 25 men because every shelter in town was full. Those guys took a blanket and headed to Belltown, Pioneer Square, Beacon Hill, Ballard, Capitol Hill. It would have been nice to offer an alternative to sleeping under the freeway.

But now that the Port has safely protected the public at great public expense, perhaps they could divulge their plan for that little patch of public land.

Tell us, Port. How are YOU going to "promote the general welfare" with that property, now that you've kicked the poor people out?

Preamble

2009-09-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

It seems like a debate that will never end. What role does government have in caring for citizens?

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

For the knuckleheads who object to government intervention, how do you think government can "promote the general Welfare" by ignoring the desperate situation which many people find themselves in today? A nation of sharply divided "haves" and "have-nots" will not lead to domestic tranquility. Homelessness, health-care, poverty are shared problems. There will only be shared solutions. Everyone must shoulder some responsibility.

Fun with the kiddos

2009-09-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

What a day.

I took four homeless kids to the fair for the day. Two boys, two girls, ages 7 to 12. They had a blast.

Monster Truck revved up at the gate made them jump a mile.

They went on 8-9 rides each. No one got sick!

Petting a goat for the first time. Petting a cow. Petting a rabbit. Petting a chicken. I thought we might never leave the petting area. The seven year old didn't want to stop petting.

The kids got along so great with each other. I actually got misty-eyed at their enchantment with everything. First fair they had ever been to.

What a great job I have!

On the Edge

2009-09-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Like our clients, Nightwatch teeters on the edge.

Their chaos becomes our chaos, their challenges are our challenges. Today someone asked about our “strategic plan.” My answer would be “One Day at a Time.”

So much needs to be done. There are 2,800 human beings sleeping outside tonight, in Seattle/King County. On any given night, over 8,300 people are homeless when you include shelters and transitional programs. I hear talk about building new apartments as a solution to homelessness. The cost of $225,000 per unit seems as crazy as the client who was sure that his brain was being controlled by satellites, and showed me a website to prove it.

Tonight after visiting two homeless encampments to deliver pastries, and stopping in two neighborhood pubs, Pastor Dave and I looked at each other and said, "What the heck did we get done tonight?"

On the way back to our Shelter Dispatch Center, we stopped by a Nightwatch shelter. Seventy five guys were sprawled out on mats in a big room, sleeping. This is what we do. Every night.

At 11:45 one last homeless woman walks out the door with food and a new pair of socks.

No drama. But it matters. Yep.

You wanna help? Our biggest problem right now is moolah.

Ah, Life!

2009-09-03T11:50:00.001-07:00

This week, one Nightwatch coworker sat at home, ill. The other is out for a few days following dental surgery.

For my part, my doctor announced Tuesday that there was really nothing to be done for my sore knee. “Get used to it” -- the effect of running too many miles on cement sidewalks, and the vagaries of being 56. Ah, life.

Meanwhile, a homeless buddy of mine described his descent into the 3rd level of healthcare hell. He called the ambulance to haul himself off, so debilitated he was. The ER told him it was pneumonia, gave him a prescription, and let him WALK to the pharmacy and then take the bus back at 11 pm to where he’s camping outside. IT’S INSANE.

He was still huffing and puffing when I saw him the following night. He says he’s much better. It’s our stinking healthcare system that is terminal. If it had been me, waving my Regence card in their face, they would have run tests, given me an oxygen tank, filled the prescription and handed it to me. Maybe keep me overnight.

Anyone for status quo is cracked.

Homeless friends

2009-08-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

We have all these marvelous mechanisms for keeping in touch with people. Telephones. Email. Facebook. Twitter.

Even homeless people are able to take advantage of some of these. We have homeless people making cell phone calls, texting friends, using the public library for email. I think it’s been the biggest change in my 15 years at Nightwatch. I even have some homeless people who are my Facebook friends.

But, nothing can replace being face-to-face.

I was standing in line at the beginning of the night at Nightwatch last week. I stood along-side homeless people. Some looked me in the face and smiled, others acknowledged my presence by yielding their place in line, thinking I was simply waiting to get food with everyone else.

One homeless guy seemed ready to talk. “This is my last week here,” he told me. He had saved his money working in Alaska, had a job lined up in Hawaii at a four-star hotel. Being homeless for a few weeks in Seattle was nothing more than a stop along the way. He had a plan, he had a direction, he had hope. And he knew that someone at Nightwatch was there to cheer him onward.

Is there room in your life for a different sort of friend? Hope so!

Highs and Lows

2009-08-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

How could one night swing around so wildly?

Instead of our usual haunts, we met up with a former client “Will,” now sober, and had 90 minutes of conversation in a coffee shop in Ballard (the new Belltown, I’m thinking).

It always takes me a minute to realize: “This is the same guy” because he was the worst toxic drunk I have ever known. And he’s been alcohol free nine years. No set-backs.

From this high, we stopped by Harborview – where an extended family member “Maggy” is in the Intensive Care Unit, having suffered a stroke. She’s one of those people who always had a smile going. There are some tough choices coming in the next few hours. Wisdom and the Comforting Presence needed.

As we left Harborview, we encountered a hospital patient, outside for a smoke. Pretty scraped up, in a neck brace, “Dee” gave us a wild story – in prison 18 of the past 21 years, he’s decided to become a minister. Or a comedian. His stream-of-consciousness “screen-play” had hyper-religious overtones and crude prison references.

But through the mania and brokenness, there was something lovable and lovely about the guy, sitting there in the dark, nearly midnight, dressed in hospital garb and neck brace.

We said goodbye, and a half block away, he called out to us.

“I know it’s kind of weird in our culture and all . . .” his voice trailed off. “Can I have a hug?”

I watched as he hugged Father Kim, and then he bent down to hug me, and I could only think, “This is the best job in the entire world” because it was so thoroughly satisfying. Because of Will, I know the dead come to life. Because of that, I know Maggy will smile again, somewhere. And I know that problems can’t be solved with a hug, but it sure doesn’t hurt.

A shared sadness

2009-07-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday night, the heat broke. Better
my heart. It's hardness was sadly
revealed to me, too late to do much about it.

"How's your day?"
I innocently asked
a young man,
squating along Broadway.

His pup lay beside him, dispirited.
Too tired, too hot. No wag left.
He barely lifted his head to acknowledge me.

Th weary dog's owner thought about his day.

"They pulled some girl out of the water
at Madison Park" was his answer.

His street companion was incredulous.
"No shit? You saw this?"

"Yep."

The brief sad tale hung there for a moment,
all of us keeping silence.

I mumbled some
lame banal blessing,
and continued on my way.
"Pray for me will you?"
he shouts down the sidewalk.

So tonight I will pray.

I will pray for a young man,
witness to one great sadness
after another in his short life.

And I will pray for myself,
for eyes to see
at once,
instead of waking up
to a lost moment
a day later.

Tent Cities: Good Idea or Not?

2009-07-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

Urban planner says tent communities 'no solution at all' - Article from the Sunday from the News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois.

Psychrolutes marcidus aka "blobfish." NOT an urban planner.

It is always interesting to me that urban planners don't like tent cities. They are urban, but unplanned. "Illegal." But one big reason that we have a need for housing in every major city in America is that government is tilted toward those with power & influence. We want to only build safe housing, so we make housing so expensive that poor people, even working poor people, cannot afford to live inside.

Then, when a social conscious developer finds a "work around" (one guy in Seattle called it a "code-hack") then the neighborhood starts to whine. We don't want tents, we don't want affordable housing (check out Magnolia's NIMBY population), we don't want want subsidized housing close by. Heck, the only poor people we want are the ones who mow our lawns, bag our groceries, serve up our coffee, or flip our burgers. Let them all commute from Tukwila, huh?

Until the urban planner has a plan that works, he is going to have to contend with unplanned survival mechanisms. Life will find a way. Or something like that.

Another family to help

2009-07-15T11:50:00.001-07:00

They were living at Nickelsville, mom, dad, and a 20-year-old developmentally disabled son.

Dad got a job offer in Tulsa, and moved in with friends there. Doesn't seem good to anyone to have the mother and the kid alone in Seattle, living in a tent.

Anyone want to chip in toward the $202 bus ticket to get the family reunited? Let me know so this doesn't drag on for a month.

Homeless Bikes in Tennessee

2009-07-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Chattanooga Community Kitchen and Outdoor Chattanooga have teamed up to provide bicycles for some of the 400 to 500 people who are sleeping on streets or in shelters each night.

See story here.

I wonder how hilly Chattanooga is compared with Seattle. Can't really see homeless people pumping up the hill to Nightwatch from Pioneer Square, but who knows?

When we were located in Belltown a decade ago, we did have a few homeless guys on bicycles. It beats walking everywhere. But doubtful that the shelters have bike racks.

Awful responsibility

2009-07-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

Operation Nightwatch got a check with this note: "Rick - no return envelope, so am sending $10 again. Can afford to -- am now getting $16 food stamps. Thanks for your prayers."

Imagine the sense of awful responsibility that is mine, in spending that $10 to take care of homeless people.

What I do for a living. . .

2009-07-08T13:36:00.001-07:00

A punkster at a downtown tavern was talking about his new “do” -- shaved his head except for a spiky ridge down the middle, and I asked him how he got his hair to stand up like that and he starts to rubbing it between the palms of his hands, like you might rub a balloon against your chest to get it to stick to the ceiling, and sure enough after enough rubbing his hair was standing about 6 inches straight up in the air.

I said something about getting a haircut or growing a pony tail and he says no, and starts rubbing his hands around and around and around in my hair. Guys at the bar starting to notice me standing there with my hair going wilder and wilder, the bartender stops pouring, starts laughing, and the pool players stop and the guy at the jukebox turns and even some guys on the back wall start chuckling and the punk’s hands are swirling around and around and he stops and I can see myself in the back bar mirror and it's not too bad and I think “I'm never going to buy gel again and to heck with getting a haircut.”

How can I explain what I do for a living?

Medical Crisis?

2009-07-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

It was well after midnight in Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle.

I'm walking the Nightwatch beat in my clerical collar. At the corner of First and Yesler, I see a homeless guy on his back, flopping around like a fish in the bottom of a boat.

Now, having worked for a few years in a health care setting, I've seen lots of people having seizures. This guy looked like he was having a tonic-clonic episode.

I lean over him. "Hey, buddy! Buddy! You all right?"

Now, if he WAS having a seizure, he's not going to speak to me, so I'm not sure what I thought. His eyes were closed and by this time he's jerking, jerking, jerking.

He opens one eye and looks at me, hovering over him, worried.

"I'm . . . just. . . working. . . on. . . my. . . abs."

Alrighty then. . . on to the next crisis.

To Turn

2009-06-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

I am in marathon training, which means long runs on Saturday. Right now that means 10 – 14 miles.

Saturday I was feeling great, leaving Capitol Hill, through Northlake, into Fremont. I had in mind to run across the Ballard Bridge, to Nickerson, Westlake, Denny Way, and home. Maybe 13-14 miles.

But there was one Little Problem. I hadn’t really finished preparing my sermon for the next day. Acute mental functioning wasn’t going to happen after a 14 mile run. Happily, I recognized the error of my ways, and turned around, headed home.

That turn-around gave me something to think about.

In Hebrew, שוב . Usually translated repent, the word shub literally means to turn around.

It’s easy for me to run the wrong direction, or simply run too far ahead. If I’m paying attention, I stop and turn around. Recognizing the need to change direction, to change focus, can be tricky. Having resolve, we also need strength. It’s there, when we ask for it.

What I'm working on . . .

2009-06-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

Friday night, it's about a six minute drive to Operation Nightwatch from one of the most fabulous houses in the region, bar none. Beautiful house, filled with beautiful women, writing checks to support homeless sisters at Operation Nightwatch. They gave $20,000+ in two nights.

Meanwhile outside Nightwatch, it's 9:00 pm and homeless people have lined up to get a decent meal and a place to go for the night. It's an interesting transition.

I'm greeting people and shaking hands and answering questions.

Some young guy says, "If I'm already a believer, what's the next thing I should be working on?"

Learn how to love people. That's what I told him, and he told me he thought that was a good answer.

Forty years

2009-06-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

1969. The Seattle Pilots were playing their first and only year of major league baseball at Sick's Stadium. "Here Come's the Brides" was playing on television (Bobby Sherman!) The tallest building downtown was the Smith Tower until the SeaFirst Building was completed later in the year.

1969 was the year that Rev. Norm Riggins put on a clerical collar and went out on the street at night for the first time with Operation Nightwatch.

Octogenarians usually take life easy. But ever since retirement, Norm and wife Bonnie have volunteered their time. He still has been going to bars to greet patrons and bartenders, she distributes socks and hygiene supplies to homeless people two nights a month.

It gives meaning to life, to care for folks. But now Norm is having trouble. He's a little unsteady on his feet. But I won't count him out. He will fight it. The passion and drive are still there. It's just. . . well, let's face it. The flesh is weak.

Forty years is a long time to stick with something.

So long, Bill.

2009-06-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

Bill went in the hospital two weeks ago. He thought it might be pneumonia.

Turned out to be something worse.

Last Wednesday he let it be known he wanted to be baptized. Thursday I talked with him about it.

Friday I went back. He confirmed his wish. So I baptized him while he lay in bed at Veteran's Hospital.

Bill liked being baptized. He smiled and said, "It's so easy!"

Very easy.

The next day I got a call from a neighbor. Bill was dead. Having made his peace, he simply let go.

little things matter. . .

2009-05-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

From Robin, in the Nightwatch office:

Almost every morning now when I get to work, "Chuck" is out front talking to the crossing guard. This morning (as usual) Chuck starts talking to me asking me if I'm "working hard", etc.

{Chuck has a repertoire: "Keeping out of trouble?" "Working hard?" "Keeping busy?" Pretty much one of these three, every time he sees you.}

Chuck mentions that his alarm clock didn't go off for some reason this morning. I asked him if he missed an appointment or something important. He says, "No, I set it so I get up in time to talk to the crossing guard."

{The crossing guard keeps track of the kids on the way to Gatzert Elementary. He's a retired sheriff's deputy, on duty before and after school at 14th and Main.}

It made me realize that little things in life make all the difference. Having a nice crossing guard makes Chuck want to get up and out of bed every morning. Just wanted to pass that story along, it just made me smile :)

{Thanks, Robin}

Electricity

2009-05-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

I don't like to think of myself as a slum lord.

Nightwatch has this building with 24 senior residents. They're pretty much old, poor, formerly homeless.

And pretty dang fun.

I'm wandering the hall and someone says something about their smoke detector beeping. "But it only happens when the power goes off."

Well, shoot. How often does THAT happen?

"Every night?"

Apparently when this building was renovated 28 years ago, they wired three or four rooms each on a 20 amp circuit. This happened before Mongo Size televisions and home oxygen machines and microwave ovens for low-income people.

I got one nice guy to make a bid. Now what? I need a few more professionals to come and give bids on rewiring. And if anyone has an idea on paying for it, let me know. First bid was about ten grand. {{sigh}}

HAHAHAHA

2009-05-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

Phone conversation of the day.

I'm putting together a list of resources for pastors, related to drug & alcohol stuff. A guy at an AA office says: "What? God didn't give phone books for pastors?"

HA!!!

The Drinker's Bargain

2009-05-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

The booze hound says, "I'm okay, at least I'm not homeless."

The homeless boozer says, "I'm homeless and I drink, get over it. At least I'm not a junkie."

The junkie says, "It's organic. As soon as I get a place, I'll kick it. At least I'm not some old boozer."

It just goes round and round like that. As long as you can see someone else worse off, then you are okay.

I've seen serious alcoholics pulling down six figures. They have no pity for the homeless alcoholic, other than flipping a pan-handler a buck. When they feel like it.

Being self-absorbed and self-serving cuts across income, class, education, political opinion, orientation, and classification. What do you think?

Earth Sunday

2009-04-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

It's Earth Sunday.
Mists rise, primordial

A crow questions
the goodness
of a God
who requires such
hard work and suffering
while pulling out
Dick's fries
from the bag
at my bus stop.

Treats for the camp

2009-04-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

"So Dustin, what do they need most at Nickelsville?" I waiting to hear "socks."

"Food."

Ooookay. Let's see what we got in the Nightwatch kitchen. Stuff we aren't going to use to feed our hungry hordes.

Manager Ben starts pulling out loaves of bread. Like 40 loaves of bread. "We gotta clear out freezer space. How about these hot dog buns?"

Sure, we can stop and buy hotdogs. Got any peanut butter?

Great, how about jam? Ok. We're set.

I'm driving down to Nickelsville with all this good grub and I stop at the local grocer in Rainier Beach. I've got a "mystery dignitary" with me. Turns out he's vegetarian, but has no problem buying 30 or 40 pounds of hotdogs for homeless people. Thank you Mystery Dignitary for your generous act. You will be rewarded.

Even though it was "quiet time" the news quickly spread about the dogs, the buns, the relish and mustard; a fire was going in the barrel. The thankfulness for this humble provender was palpable. (I've been trying to work that phrase into my blog for years.)

Ponder a moment: why are there people hungry enough to anxiously roast weiners over an open fire at 9:30 at night? I know things are tough, but come on. Let's get meals organized for Nickelsville, ok?

Uncertainty

2009-04-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

Life is uncertain.

We try to insulate ourselves from that uncertainty. But in the end, we all end up as compost.

So, what really matters?

Do you think all the junk in the garage is going to matter to anyone after you're gone? They're going to have a rummage sale, and what's left over will go to Goodwill, and what ever survives that will end up as land fill. Are you sure you want to waste your life accumulating all that "stuff?"

My crisis this week is to help a family with four children find affordable housing when they have a family income of about $1,000 a month. Nice people. Just poor. A combination of bad breaks, poor health, lousy job skills have led to this crisis. But they are so dang adorable.

Isn't there someone out there with an answer for me?

Would you be willing to take a chance?

Ya gotta smile

2009-04-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

There are plenty of reasons to feel lousy.

Tonight's message: get over it.

We got back from our night out, wondering if we had done anyone any good. At the Operation Nightwatch Shelter Dispatch Center there was still a room full of homeless guys, and the prospects for getting into shelter were looking pretty dim.

There are reasons to start ranting about the economy, injustice, addiction, lack of mental health services, whatever.

But some random homeless guy just stopped outside our door for a moment. "Are you guys Catholic?" he asked us, out on the sidewalk.

"I'm Episcopalian, he's Methodist," Fr. Kim pointed. "No one group runs Nightwatch," I chip in.

Then, out of the blue, the homeless guy smiles a million dollar smile and says, "Well, thank you for what you guys do. God bless." And off he trudged to shelter, at 11:30 pm on a night in April.

Suddenly I felt less whiney.

While you slept, I schlepped

2009-04-10T01:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was God's roadie.

I picked up 125 Dick's cheeseburgers. For those uninitiated, Dick's Drive-Ins is a local chain that started about the same time as McDonalds, only never changed. Real potatoes going through the dicer to become fries, real milk and ice cream for the shakes. For 12 years now, Dick has been providing 125 fresh burgers three times a week. My job tonight: deliver these to the hungry homeless at Nightwatch. Mission accomplished. My stomach growled the whole way. (Thursday nights, 8:30 pm at Broadway Dick's. Volunteers?)

Then I found out our van driver wasn't coming. Which meant I needed to haul the new blankets to our women's shelter, and pick up (gulp) 26 garbage bags of old blankets back to Nightwatch for laundry service.

Some lovely conversations along the way with homeless folks and some of our bar friends. It was a lot of schlepping tonight, but I'm ending with a smile on my face. Thanks for making this possible.

Still looking for drivers to haul homeless women to shelter 8:45 to 11:00 or so. Always an interesting drive in our lovely van.

More homeless seniors. . .

2009-04-08T12:16:00.001-07:00

How can you survive on $700 a month from Social Security?

Some old folks are sleeping in their cars. Read it in the Seattle Times here:

Operation Nightwatch has 24 units for seniors, shared bath and community kitchen. Furnished room, with late night dinner thrown in for $250 a month. Must be 62+. It's amazing how many people can only afford that much rent.

I get the feeling we're about to see a huge shift in demographics in our homeless population.

The one comment though, that I found interesting. One of the interviewees wouldn't give his name: "I don't want my kids to know I'm homeless."

Something haywire there.

The guy pictured here worked for 10 years as a dishwasher before retiring in our building. Not sure where he would have ended up otherwise. . .

Slow Night on the Street

2009-04-03T00:46:00.000-07:00

I humbly offer a poem from last April in lieu of homeless currents

Tonight April, 2008

Tonight I hugged a hooker,
And held the hand of an addict
Who assured me that everything
Was just fine;
Yet he was looking
over my shoulder
the whole time.
Tonight I breathed a prayer of blessing
In a place that smelled like beer
And piss.
Tonight I shook hands with a homeless friend
And talked baseball
Instead of asking
Why he won’t deal with
The cancer he knows
is killing him.
Tonight I listened to a carefully coiffed drunk
With lustrous skin and perfect nails
Tell me how generous she is
(to a fault)
and I wondered how much she spent
on the gold leather coat,
the face lift, the teeth,
the boobs, hidden, lurking.
Tonight I talked to workers
Who served up food and shelter for 200
But had to send away 23 men
And six women
Into the rainy night
With nothing but a thin wool blanket.
Tonight I will have to dream some impossible dream
on behalf of 29 miserable phantoms.
God help us all.

Sullivan's Travels and April's Sadness

2009-03-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

There is a scene in the 1941 Preston Sturges movie Sullivan's Travels that absolutely killed me this weekend. The male lead wakes up in a shelter without his shoes.

It's a stereotype. (There are a ton in this movie). But the thing they got right: stuff happens when you're homeless, shelter or not. Your day labor job ruins your only set of clothes. You set your bag down, turn around, and it's gone. You drop quarters in a phone and get a wrong number. Your friend takes off with the money for the deposit, you sprain an ankle and on and on.

Now April is almost here. Surprise! More fun. April 1st, a shelter closes for 40 women (apparently it's mild enough, we don't have to be concerned about these 40 women now facing being outside at night). There are 50 men facing the same fate when they close the shelter at the King County Administration building.

This winter shelter stuff has been a problem the entire 15 years I've been here. Can't we figure something out?

20 men. Who cares?

2009-03-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight we told 20 guys that there's no shelter in the entire city of Seattle. "Here's your blanket, good luck, God bless."

If you've never done that, it is a sickening feeling.

Next week 50 more homeless guys will be turned out of the King County Administration building shelter. Forty women will be pushed out from Angeline's women's shelter. It's horrible.

Many of my friends would say, "The City of Seattle should do something." I say, forget the City of Seattle. YOU should do something.

If your congregation isn't providing space and volunteers for homeless people, SHAME on YOU. If you have resources; time, space, willingness, let's talk.

I would invite the policy makers who decided April was an acceptable month for shelter closures to spend a few nights sleeping in their back yard with a blanket.

Why are we heating city hall when our citizens are sleeping outside?

Passing of a friend

2009-03-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

My friend June passed away today. I'm sad.

In the mid 1970s she decided the young adults at our local church had enough Sunday school. It was time go into action. So they organized "church" at Branch Villa Nursing Home in Seattle's Central District. Every Sunday morning, 9:00 am, instead of sitting around eating danishes and arguing some esoteric doctrine, we gathered 30 residents and sang old fashioned gospel songs with guitars, and sometimes with the piano stylings of a resident, Alta. One old vaudevillian would rise and sing solo. "Church in the Wildwood" might morph into "Pistol Packin' Mama." I stuck with it for 10 years, every week. Others continued even longer, all started by June.

One old Skid Road denizen was released back into a flea bag hotel. June found out where he was, and we took him a birthday cake. It was crazy fun. The guy was 70 and never saw anything like it. We passed out cake to eveyone coming through the lobby.

Long before I had any sense of my life's work, June would tell me, "Rick, you're on" and I would have to get up in front of these old people and bring some word of encouragement. I might go on for 4 minutes, but that was pushing it.

Dang it. Death is no good.

Homeless Ping Pong

2009-03-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarita is in a weird sort of ping pong game, with homeless people being the much maligned ball.

No neighborhoods want to host the temporary shelter.

So bus tickets to another location in Los Angeles seemed in order.

This one line appears in the article: ". . .never mind that the CDC {the local non-profit shelter provider) ran a tight ship and never drew many police calls." Read more here.

The *NIMBYs in Santa Clarita want to maintain their housing values (okay, cue the laughter).

They should welcome homeless people, and get the investment bankers out of town!

* NIMBY = "Not In My Back Yard"

Feeling testy this morning

2009-03-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Well, who wouldn't be testy? It was a horrible night to be homeless last night. Street minister Dustin and I took newly laundered blankets down to Nickelsville, the homeless tent site named in honor of Seattle's mayor. It was a muddy hole, yet nearly every tent was filled.

Then we went to another camp site at St. Mark's Cathedral. People were in better spirits, but still, here's 100 homeless people in the cold and rain.

Back at Nightwatch, it was 11:00 pm and the last few "lucky" homeless guys were getting sent to shelter. Our dispatch center was still full, and not a shelter bed was available city wide. Thirty guys, waiting, waiting.

Then the darndest thing. At 11:30 we called the shelter located at the Millionair Club. Only 60 guys had shown up. We sent another load there, and only 5 guys had to take a blanket.

Apparently 15 - 20 guys came to eat, took a shelter slip, and got a better offer before they vanished into the night. Crisis averted, for now.

Death in the family

2009-03-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

It feels pretty lousy this morning, to pluck my PI out of the back yard. (Seems like the guy could at least hit the porch, last chance and all.)

146 years of history. Done.

I'm adjusting.

After doing the crossword puzzle, I called circulation. They are NOT going to automatically switch me over to the Times. I'm done.

Save a tree, I say. Although maybe I'll cave in later, for Danny Westneat's sake. :)

Sick and miserable

2009-03-13T00:53:00.000-07:00

Everyone gets sick at some point. The flu. Ugh. Imagine being sick AND homeless.

Tonight some young lady was looking really miserable - wrapped up in blankets, fevered. She was sitting in one of the tent cities.

"What do you usually do in these cases?" I asked the person in the Headquarters tent. "If I get medicine can you give it to her?"

Yup. So I ran off to the store.

I'm looking at the TheraFlu. Shoot, you have to be able to heat water for that.

Ended up with two packages of capsule form of Vick's Nyquil. Your donor dollars at work!

News: Homeless people are not bums

2009-03-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

We've had a running joke about posting pictures of our clients, so that people could adopt them online. Exploitive, horrible, but absurd/funny. And impossible.

Now someone has done it. More here.

Exploitive. Horrible

Train Wreck

2009-03-06T00:42:00.000-08:00

First stop, Nickelsville, now located at Bryn Mawr United Methodist, near Renton. Not close, but oh well. Kudos to the church for hosting for three months.

Stopped at the usual places, nice conversation. Encouraged Da Nang to make up with his buddy. He said he would.

Then, on the way back to HQ I saw an old friend, struggling with drug issues. It's 11:30 at night, she's headed downtown. I pull a three-lane U-Turn and roll down the window. "You okay?" I ask her.

I know the answer, but I wanted to hear what she said.

"I'm just going downtown to meet my boyfriend." She's lying, lying, lying. She going to make a connection.

She knows I know she's lying.

It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Just gotta stand back and let it happen. It's too late to wave lanterns or throw switches.

I'm going to bed, sick to my stomach.

A Stop in Pueblo

2009-02-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a story:

In 1997 I was fortunate enough to help my friend Herchel get off the street. The first thing he did: had me write a letter to Wayside Cross Mission in Pueblo. Herchel wanted me to thank them for helping him, many years ago.

For years, Herchel faithfully helped Operation Nightwatch in ways not noticed by many people. He was our gatekeeper; passing out numbered tickets so homeless guys didn't have to stand in line; mopped the floor; and later, when he moved into our apartment building, he picked up litter in the neighborhood, to keep us good with neighbors.

Herchel was a man of few words. He could barely read or write. He'd get excited and tell me things like "Saw a '57 Chevy." When he had a problem, and I couldn't understand him he would get mad. "F-ing B-S-" he would say, clear as a bell.

But despite the occasional blue language, he was a man at peace with the world. He knew his terminal disease could mean a miserable end. But his faith was an inspiration to me - and still is. Not very conventional, not churchy, but solid, real, meaningful, gritty stuff.

So, I am on vacation this week, traveling from Albuquerque to Denver. I had to pull off in Pueblo and find the "Wayside Cross Mission" and tell them the story of Herchel's life. And to thank them again for what they did for Herchel.

And for me.

Benedictus

2009-02-14T11:23:00.000-08:00

I enjoy the incantations
Of the mentally ill,
Who pray for me
In curious languages
Known only by God.

And I am buoyed by
the charismatic cadences
Of sixth grade Four Square children
Praying “Lord God, Lord God” while pressing down
Small hands upon my head and shoulders.
How they pushed! Or, was I simply weary?

But today, a different blessing was bestowed:
Truck Driver Benediction.

He looked me in the eye and shook my hand
Having faithfully delivered 3,000 homeless blankets
Compliments of the Defense Department.

“You’re doing the Lord’s work” he growled
With A Voice,
Created by Jack Daniels
And the strain of being heard
Over a twin-cam 96B Fatboy Harley.

“You’re doing the Lord’s work.”
It made the rest of my 20 hour work day
much lighter.
And that WAS a blessing.

Rick Reynolds, February 12, 2009

Where the heck is Oscoda, Michigan?

2009-02-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

And why does it matter?

Oscoda is a little town way up north. Not an urban center. The air force base closed down a few years ago.

Last night their town planning council decided to let the local Anglican church host a shelter. I say, good for them! Read more here.

Blankets are coming!!!!

2009-02-10T13:17:00.001-08:00

The skeptics on the crew at Operation Nightwatch were teasing me.

"Those blankets won't be here for three months," they said.

But I knew. It's a new day in Washington. The blanket bureaucracy is now efficient and fast moving.

Which means, now we gotta problem. HELP! We've got to unload the semi when it arrives, Wednesday or Thursday this week. Handtrucks helpful.

Email me and I'll put you on the alert. It's a massive effort, takes about two hours if we get enough workers.

What's the WORST job you ever had?

2009-02-06T00:38:00.000-08:00

That was our question tonight.

There were some interesting answers: haying, milking cows at 4:00 a.m., washing dishes.

There was a Catholic sister I knew who travelled to another city incognito to experience life as a homeless person.

A "gospel" mission had her washing dishes before letting her sleep on the greasy kitchen floor.

Most of the folks we were talking with tonight agreed that the day labor opportunities weren't too great. They treat you mean, and charge you for everything; getting to the job site, cashing your check for you at the end of the day. They take half the money that the employer pays out, right off the top. You work all day, and get to go home to your tent to rest up.

What a world.

So, what was YOUR worst job?