Housing First

By: Colleen Sinsky

Lately what’s been taking up my time at work is one of the less glamorous aspects of social service – gathering data to comply with funding regulations. One of our larger sources of funding is a city program which provides a flexible source for us to pay housing costs.

The catch- from my perspective- is the series of surveys that we are required to give the recipients. These “cost-avoidance” surveys collect data to compare the costs to the government of providing subsidized housing versus the costs to government of allowing individuals to remain homeless. Giving these surveys is tough- tracking down hundreds of people from a list is a logistical challenge and I sometimes feel invasive asking these questions that are fairly personal.

“How many nights last year did you sleep on the streets? In a short-term shelter?”

“How many times in the year did you go to the Emergency Room?”

“How many contacts did you have with the police? Arrests?”

“If you have children, have they been in foster care?”

A lot of the folks I visit for the survey are lonely, and relish the chance to get to share their story with a new person. I think that sometimes being able to share their experience, and know that the time they spent under the bridge was noticed, documented- validates what they went through prior to getting keys to their own place. Sitting down at someone’s kitchen table in a dingy studio apartment downtown, I try to frame the survey into a conversation, rather than the series of bullet points it is, and it opens the floor to talk about some really incredible stories. I love being able to just listen without an agenda that I have to get across during our appointment. While people have a wide range of reactions to the survey, I almost always feel as if I’ve been given a gift- of someone choosing to let me into a little bit of their life and telling me the story behind each of the ER visits, the arrests, the nights it was too cold to not go to the Red Cross warming shelter.

At the end of each survey I always thank the person and explain that, as pointless as the survey seems, that it’s their chance to let the government know based their own experience, “hey! It’s cheaper for you to be putting people into housing rather than letting them sleep on the streets!” And it is. The “housing first” model has proved cheaper to taxpayers because of increased costs associated with the higher rate of incarceration, emergency shelter and hospitalization required for homeless individuals.

This interactive tool, from the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows a breakdown of Portland’s costs per individual and drop from $42,074 to $26,819 once the person has been supported into permanent housing. Right now, Multnomah County’s Ending Homelessness Advisory Council has a ten year plan that points out that of the $30 million spent on homelessness, just 12% goes towards permanent housing.

This is a tough policy call to make, and I would feel unqualified being anywhere but on the sidelines, gathering data, but I hope that this controversial balance becomes a larger conversation. In the meantime though, I’ve helped out with four moves this week and am happy to be playing my small role in Portland.

Toes In The Mud

By: Colleen Sinsky

Danny, one of our housed folks is an amazing poet and musician and spent years running cattle on ranches in the mountains of Colorado. He is one of the most intense and gifted harmonica players I've ever seen. One of these days I'll get a video up here on this blog of Danny jamming, but in the meantime here's a lyrical poem he wrote that he let me share up here.

Toes In The Mud

By Daniel Eley

Sittin’ in a window

Feeling at ease

Mouth held open

Slappin’ my knees

Head tossed back

Hair in the breeze

eyes are closed

and all is free.

Off the sill

and into the air

feet slappin’ grass

Happiness there

Jumpin’ real high

Naked and bare

Spirit is soaring

Got no care

On down the path

branches above

skin is tinglin’

no one that shoves

Relatin’ with nature

toes in the mud

sun castin’ shadows

and fallin in love

Spinnin’ around

nothin’ is dead

birds in the trees

makin’ their beds

Hearts pumpin’ hard

and I’ve been led

to a place in life

with Peace in my head.

© 4-2001 Daniel Eley

The Four Letter Word

By: Colleen Sinsky

I was thrown off the first time that “Emily,” one of our housed folks ended a conversation with “Bye Colleen, I love you so much!” I had a split second of confusion… ‘wait.. you’re not in my family, not a close friend, and not some boy I’ve been dating a while, not my dog… what do I respond with here?’ That first time Emily said that I sputtered off an automatic “love you too Emily, see you later!” But it wasn’t until I was sitting in my car and had time to think that I realized that I really did love Emily. This realization shocked even myself, and I immediately started stressing about that blurry but very present line between “clients” and “caseworkers.” Where, if anywhere, does love fit into that relationship?

Until recently, the L-word had a very specific place in my life and in my relationships, and keeping that feeling safely segregated helped me feel aloof, and protected from being able to care too much about people outside of my “bubble.” Realizing that I do, in fact, love those strangers sleeping on the streets or precariously housed was a scary, humbling, and vulnerable moment. It’s much easier to operate from a place of sterile assistance rather than opening my heart and being awake to our shared humanity.

A great Jesuit in El Salvador described the feeling of opening up to the world we’d rather ignore better than I ever could. He talks about those of us who experience poverty and find ourselves investing in and being changed by the people we meet and the stories they share:

“A sweet shame comes over them, not bitter remorse but more like the shame one feels when falling in love. The visitors feel… the world that is made up of important people like them and unimportant people losing its grip on them. As the poet Yeats says, “things fall apart;” the visitors’ world is coming unhinged. They feel resistance, naturally, to a current that threatens to sweep them out of control. They feel a little confused –again—like the disorientation of falling in love. In fact, that is what is happening, a kind of falling in love. The earth trembles. My horizon is opening up. I’m on unfamiliar ground, entering a richer, more real world.”

-Dean Brackley, SJ

Meeting the Victims, Falling in Love

I didn’t expect to find this love in urban poverty, or to work in an environment where it’s okay to embrace and run with this feeling. Love is a scary word in general, but for it to exist in social service is a rare and wonderful thing. At JOIN, love is regularly cleaning out a chronic hoarder’s bedbug-ridden apartment so that she won’t be kicked out. It’s rehousing, and choosing to help the stubborn jerks that no one else will work with. It’s saying “no” and ending rental support. It’s Sara, our Data Guru’s saint-like patience or Ellene waking up early on her first Sunday on the job to do a move. It’s Keith putting everything on hold at the end of a crazy day on the House to have a heart to heart with Don. Love is Lio telling someone to “get your head out of your a**” and Quinn endlessly talking Yankees with Tom, and a thousand other examples of love as a verb. It’s the tangible grief that settled over the office when Lee Critchlow died, or having the respect to step back and let our folks make their own mistakes along the road to self-sufficiency. Love is constantly bending over backwards to lengths I don’t always understand.

Last night I found an old voicemail in my phone of Emily calling me late one night from the hospital to check in and tell me that she loves me. I was humbled, and honored that I can be that person for someone. Her life has been devoid of many experiences of love that I take for granted, yet she shares it and says it so easily. In a society where talking about this kind of love has become taboo, there is a lot to be learned from this woman. I love you too Emily.

Portland Immersion

By: Colleen Sinsky

This past weekend I got to tag along with one of JOIN’s Immersion Trips into Portland. My housemate Daniel has been organizing and leading these trips for youth groups, high schools, and colleges all year but this was my first time getting to experience this important aspect of community education.

When JOIN was founded in the early 1990’s, a primary goal was to bridge the disconnect between homeless and housed people through community education. Since then, JOIN has obviously expanded greatly to include outreach, retention, and the House drop-in space, but Immersions remain an important but quiet part of JOIN’s mission. Each year a Jesuit Volunteer becomes the new Immersion Coordinator and is in charge of planning and running approximately 20-25 immersions that last from one day to a whole week.

Participants camp out in the JOIN office and cook dinner together in our new kitchen. During the day they do a wide range of service learning projects and get a first-hand peek into the world of homelessness that we usually try hard to ignore. The group that I got to join up with was a high school aged Christian youth group from Scappoose, OR. It was their first weekend of Spring Break and I was amazed by how many of them enthusiastically came on this voluntary trip. Daniel knows me well, and didn’t tell me until after I’d signed up to come along that we would be waking up at 4:50am to take the MAX into downtown to serve breakfast at Blanchet House. This organization has been empowering homeless men for the past 60 years through a program that provides substance-free housing and job skills training for a transitional 3-month period and feeds the local homeless three meals a day, six days a week year round. I was struck by the hospitality of Blanchet House, where our high school volunteers provided table service for the guests, who were thawing out from a cold night spent under bridges or in doorways with a cup of coffee and French toast.

After cleaning up from that meal, we ate a fantastic breakfast with the Blanchet House staff and then began our tour of Old Town with Larry, a long-time JOIN friend who volunteers to do hundreds of these tours a year.

It was in the 30s- colder than we had expected, and standing around on the street for a few hours early in the morning gave us a realistic taste of what people living outside experience daily. Larry told us about the various social service agencies in the Old Town area from the unique perspective of someone who used the services. We visited and learned about TPI, Sisters of the Road, Downtown Chapel and Portland Rescue Mission.

In this photo, Daniel points out the stark contrast between the south side of Burnside that forms the border of poverty-stricken Old Town contrasted with the US Bank building on the north side- a symbol of American corporate wealth.

The kids embarked on a scavenger hunt through Old Town, trying to solve questions that someone living on the streets should know about the area, and were challenged to spend only $1 each on lunch. We then took the bus up north to Dignity Village, a self-sufficient settlement created ten years ago by some of Portland’s homeless in protest against the illegalization of

urban camping. This now-legal village, the first and so far only) of its kind in the US is incredible in its unique success. Fifty-four people live here in small houses made of donated materials, in a self-governing community whose members “pay rent” with their labor in keeping the common areas clean and well-maintained. This grassroots movement to end homelessness caused controversy when it was proposed a decade ago, and its success has illustrated that a sustaining solution can come from within the community. (Below: the All-Knowing Cow of Dignity Village)

Back at JOIN, we had dinner with a few currently homeless and recently housed friends of JOIN who shared their stories with the youth group kids. During reflection afterwards, the kids shared an amazing depth of insight. I was proud to see their level of maturity and hear how the day had affected their perceptions of homelessness. It was also so great to see my friend Daniel thriving in his element. He challenged them and they were able to leave Portland with a new level of openness and understanding of the issues surrounding homelessness.

For more info on JOIN’s Immersion Program email Daniel at Immersions@joinpdx.com

Random Violence Against Homeless Folks

By: Colleen Sinsky

Yesterday was the first time I cried while one of our folks told me his story. I wasn't feeling only sadness, rather it was a kind of wounded rage- at senseless violence that clashes against my hopeful understanding of the world.

Earlier this week, a couple of homeless men were randomly attacked and robbed in the early hours of the morning in SE Portland. We’re still trying to find out more information and follow up wherever we can, but this afternoon I spent trying to get “Ray” (name changed), one of Lio’s long-time friends, into a safe place. Ray explained, “I didn’t see them coming because I had my sleeping bag over my head because it was so cold that night.” A group of men attacked him while he slept. They hit him hard enough with something (a baseball bat?) to completely break his shoulder, and they stole the only things of value they could find- his ID and a food stamp card. Now, immobilized and in constant pain, Ray can’t go back to his job as a laborer, and it’ll be a few weeks before we’re able to get him a new ID.

Ray keeps to himself and doesn’t cause trouble on the streets. I feel so much anger on behalf of Ray, a random victim of this terrible violence, and I continue struggling to digest the fact that this kind of evil exists. It’s sad that there is enough brokenness- even here in Portland- that people feel the need to physically attack people more vulnerable than themselves. Ray’s story made me feel helpless, as there is so much that I will never be able to control or understand. Ray’s story doesn’t have a happy ending yet.

I think that the impact of hearing Ray’s story today was compounded by the fact that I spent the morning talking with Bradley, a friend of JOIN since the very beginning, who this winter was also a victim of random violence. The day after Thanksgiving, Bradley was camping in his usual spot in inner SE. Two guys pulled up in a Jeep, and while Bradley was asleep, they threw a brick onto his face and then drove away. Bradley and his campmate spent the rest of the night trying to get the bleeding to stop.

Early the next morning, the usual police officer showed up to shoo them away, but the officer took one look at Bradley and said “What happened? Get in the car, you’re going to the hospital now.” Bradley was laughing yesterday as he told me that “This officer was known as a real hard ass, but I guess when it came down to it he was a pretty good guy.” In the emergency room, Bradley found that his nose was broken in five places and that his nasal passageways were in danger. His surgery and recovery were complicated by the fact that he had also developed a severe cold from living on the streets in such chilly weather. Though the officer did a report on the incident, there were few leads to follow and this hate crime remains unsolved.

Bradley told me that sometime during his recovery process, Jarvis, one of JOIN’s outreach workers, somehow heard what happened and immediately stopped by Bradley’s hangout spot, the St. Francis Dining Hall, to hear the story. “I couldn’t believe that he approached me,” Bradley said, expressing his surprise that a social service agency would instigate housing, rather than the other way around. “It was really a shock. After that conversation I couldn’t believe how fast everything happened. It was just one friend helping another, you know? And when you put your mind to it, you can get things done fast for a friend.” Jarvis helped Bradley get back in touch with his family, get an ID, and move into an apartment. Today he’s doing great and he can’t say enough about JOIN, St. Francis Dining Hall, and wanting to help anyone else out who is in a situation like his. Bradley knows just what he would say if he ever gets the chance to speak to the person who threw the rock: “I wish I could ask them, ‘why me?’ Why did they single me out? At least though, it ended up with me being in this apartment.”

Like Bradley, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why violence of this type exists or how a person could be capable of such hatred. For now, I’ll try to focus my energy on picking up the pieces and helping victims like Ray and Bradley move forward rather than dwelling passively in my frustration.

Maybe feeling this justified wounded rage on behalf of our folks is part of the process of awakening to what social justice is. Letting myself be disturbed by this, and embracing the churning frustration is going to manifest in productive action.

Birthday Surprise

By: Quinn Colling

I met Kris four months ago in NW Portland where she camped with her dog Fox. She was shy at first, hesitant to speak with us but over time began to build up some trust. My coworker Colleen and I began to learn about her story and discovered there was no reason for her to be outside. She had a reliable income, nothing unusual in her background, an honorable discharge from the military, and a strong determination to get off of the streets. Kris had been experiencing homelessness for three years and told us that she had given up on Portland. Colleen and I asked her to let us work with her and attempt to find an apartment. After a month and a half of vigilant searching, Kris found a home for herself and Fox. On move-in day, Fox chose to celebrate and showed off for us by completing a victory lap around the apartment and snuggling up with Kris on the couch.

Just the other day, after three successful months of being in housing, Kris celebrated her birthday. Colleen and I took Kris out to celebrate over a great meal. We enjoyed perhaps the biggest burgers I have seen in my life, including a doggie sized burger for Fox. We shared stories from our lives and laughed for about an hour straight. After the meal was over, Kris shared with us that she had not celebrated her birthday in five years. She told us that we helped her more in three months than anyone had in three years. The shocker, what really took me by surprise, was what she told us next. Kris said that no one had ever taken her out for birthday and that we were now family.

Wow.

The power of this job never ceases to amaze me. I am incredibly honored that someone would allow us into their life and that JOIN could make such an impact in such a short time. I will be forever grateful for her kind words.

Social Justice at JOIN

By: Colleen Sinsky

JOIN was a little short-staffed on the House this weekend while four of our full-time volunteers were on retreat. Three of us were on the Jesuit Volunteer Northwest retreat, held in St. Helens, WA and spent the weekend talking about social justice. Keith, our House Coordinator was in Texas for a United Church of Christ retreat, coincidentally held on the same weekend.

On his way to get a blanket from the donation closet for a visitor to the House just now, Keith was kind enough to stop by my desk and ride his razor scooter around in circles while he told me about his retreat. In San Antonio, TX, Keith met many UCC volunteers who are serving throughout the US, most of whom were foreign. Keith learned many German phrases. Each of the volunteers gave presentations about their service sites and what they do, and it was interesting to learn about what the other volunteers were doing in their capacity to better the world. Keith showed me a project that two UCC volunteers are doing to raise awareness about various placements. The duo will be coming to Portland this month to film Keith and include his work at JOIN as part of their project. Check out www.TwinMaps.com

On the Jesuit Volunteer Corps retreat we joined the 75 other JVs who have placements in Oregon and Washington and spent a weekend focused on how social justice is part of our various jobs. Going to a Jesuit college, “social justice” was one of those buzzwords that I heard often but didn’t realize the impact of until I began work at a place that consciously embodies the value. By operating through a relationship based, empowerment model, JOIN brings the idea of social justice to life every day in a way that I might have written off as idealistic. It’s hard to put into words, and I’m underqualified to try to explain it anyways, but being part of this JOIN community has reminded me that there’s still space for hope, no matter how overwhelming injustice can seem.

The retreat leader teaches Social Justice at Portland’s Jesuit High School and introduced us to the idea of the “two feet of social action.” Essentially, in order to move forward towards a just and humane world, we need both charity (immediate, direct help) and justice (actions that foster lasting change). A balance between the two ensures that people’s most basic needs are being met, and that we’re moving towards a place of self-sufficiency and freedom for everyone.

Maybe this is all obvious to you. Of course we can’t expect to bring about positive change by only operating in one of the two realms. But it was helpful for me to see this diagrammed out in a tangible way. And in a way that I could so easily apply to what JOIN does. I understood the distinct “feet” as the services that JOIN offers. Upstairs, the House provides creature comforts; showers, laundry, coffee, internet, etc. and most importantly a safe place for community. It’s very direct, and the benefits are immediate. Downstairs and on the streets, Outreach and Retention treat getting folks into long-term sustainable housing as a means towards social justice. Much of the beauty is in the overlap between the two, and it has been incredible to watch people I’ve met make the dramatic transition from accepting direct services to self sufficiency and long-term empowerment.